Another week done

I forgot it was Friday today, last night I was convinced that today was Thursday. What a pain. I was hoping for one more working day for me and the men before having to leave the roof open to the elements for two days without progress and, as I type this, my thoughts are born out as a huge storm has just blown over with thunder strikes within a few hundred yards and some pretty heavy rain and strong winds. It is currently across the valley in front of me and there are still loads of flashes and rumbles. This on top of last night, but we'll come to that now.

The window is to keep rain off my DVDs

I was sleeping well when I woke with a sharp pain in my foot; it felt like a bite but I think it was just part of a dream as the pain went quickly. I decided to go to the toilet and as I went I heard a slight rumble of thunder. On getting back to the bedroom I went onto the balcony to look at the storm and it started to spit with rain; good timing to wake up! I was around the house shutting all the open windows and doors straight away and by the time I got back into bed the storm was upon us and it was a doozie! Loads of bangs and crashes and then torrential rain (about 15-20mm fell in about 20 minutes) but it was also a really fast moving storm which was a good thing as that intensity of storm result in the complete flood last time round. One thing I did do was to put a window in front of the DVDs as the rain was blowing in and flooding that area; none got wet fortunately.

Post storm, misty start

When the alarm went off it was snoozed a bit and we were both pretty tired and unwilling to wake up after being kept awake for at least an hour by the storm and its after effects. There had been a big bang which disturbed us and we couldn't work out what it was and that didn't help. When I first woke it was a lovely clear morning but twenty minutes later the fog had moved in and the sun was struggling to burn through.

Ceilings quite wet

I made the brews, found the water was back on (yay!) so immediately had a lovely quick shower, and then headed onto the roof to see what had happened up there. I was most concerned by the water coming through into what will be the living room; there was quite a bad smell of damp in the room and the ceiling was drenched. This will probably cause more of the ceiling plaster to come down but we aren't putting new up til next year so it'll have a chance to dry and shift as much as it is going to. There was also a fair dampness on the ceiling above the bed. Finally there were drips in the corridor once more.

Plenty of puddles for me to shovel over the edge

Sure enough the roof was covered in water and so, rather than go and join in with feeding the boys I grabbed the snow shovel and spent twenty minutes or so flinging water over the edge. It didn't actually achieve much I don't think but it felt good to at least be trying to solve the problem. I left for the men a little later than yesterday but still got there early. I paused briefly then headed in, grabbed a loaf of bread, and we were back really easily and without any drama. It hadn't rained at all in the men's village and they were amazed when I said we were flooded a bit again. I'm starting to think that contrary to my previous thoughts that the village I'm in avoids most of the bad weather it actually gets more rain than most. Hmmmm.

Mixing cement into the mortar

One benefit of the rain was that the mortar had received a good soaking and so when Orhan and Mahmet went out to mix cement in and add water they had a slightly easier job of it. Before long they were on the end of the rope and pulley again, using two buckets this time for speed, filling the wheelbarrow on the roof with ready mortar.

Sassy is totally an awesome zaek

It has been ages since I have taken a picture of Sassy, mainly as she is really hard to photograph well but when I was in her room getting the shots of the men doing their cement mixing she chilled out completely and didn't move at all, staying at rest in her favourite spot underneath the window. She really is a very relaxed bunny rabbit now in her new home. Another bit of news regarding Sassy which I hadn't put on the other day was that S and S have really kindly offered to look after her over the winter. I will be getting my designs together to make her a run for in her room now, and over winter, so she doesn't destroy their floor and walls as she loves to do.

Ralf in jail

While I was standing in there Ralf was at the door watching me through the child/rabbit/dog gate thing and I had to also get a shot - it looks like he is in jail bless him.

My blackberry harvest for today

Breakfast was bacon and eggs for me but A wasn't hungry and already had her nose firmly pressed to the grindstone that is her day job. With my stomach filled I straight away headed outside to do the blackberry picking as leaving it til midday yesterday had totally battered me. I had a really nice time pottering around not hurrying and actually (though it doesn't look like much) I was really pleased with the amount of fruit I found. Also there are LOADS of green fruit on all the bushes so a few weeks of this and I'll have a substantial haul I think.

One of the tortoises, mid escape

While I was out doing this round I found three tortoises over in the wild area near the vehicle gate. There was a large one (not quite the size of Zeus but big enough), the one pictured which was medium sized and then, as I jumped over the fence again, I almost landed on a smaller one, about four inches across. It is so cool having all these creatures wandering around but I hadn't taken my camera with me (it would have really got in the way as I was stretching and reaching for the fruits deep in their thickets) and when I went back the big one had scarpered and this one was frozen in the act of making a move.

This is a huge spider

I also reacquainted myself with a really large garden spider that has a web in one of the blackberry thickets. I saw this yesterday as well and it has huge fangs and is not the spider that you would choose to disturb deliberately. Yesterday the fruit hanging behind its web was not ready but today it was so I carefully reached past and got the lovely juicy black fruit. The spider was watching me the whole time I am sure of it.

Lots of Elderberries

I had emptied my blackberry haul into the freezer box and went back with the tub once more to get a load of elderberries. There are so many plants all over the land and I easily filled up the tub without even really denting the abundance. I took the advice of my aunt and picked the whole flower/berry head and left taking the berries off til I was inside.

Separated from the stalks..

I started off trying out the method suggested again by my aunt of using a fork to strip the berries off the stalks however after a minute or so I quickly gave up and resorted to using my fingers. I may have gotten really messy (and I still have some stain on my hands) but it was much quicker. I was stripping the berries for half an hour, unable to do anything else as my hands were so filthy, but at the end of it all I had 1.8kg of berries. Brilliant.

Nearly boiling over, and bottled

I was making elderberry jam and all this involved was washing the fruit, then boiling it til it was softer, adding sugar and lemon juice and boiling it up. For some reason this boiled up much more than any other jam I have made and I kept having to stir it vigorously and turn the heat down as it threatened to boil of. I think I left it in the pan boiling for about half an hour at least, again longer than I normally would, but I still got six jam jars and I am looking forward to trying this at some point.

The most amazing Plum Preserve EVER!

I was feeling much better about myself having made this and, with the water still on (and the pressure slowly improving) I washed everything up set out to make something else. I have had my eye on the "Plum Preserve" in this new book I bought and with buying the walnuts and raisins while at the shop yesterday I was all set. I pulled a box of frozen, pre-chopped, plums out and defrosted it gently on the hob breaking it up with a knife so it went quicker. Once it was all separated out I could add the raisins, boil them down, then put the sugar in and make the jam. The last step was to crush up the walnuts and put them in right at the end. Putting it into the jam jars was a bit more complicated than usual as the chunks blocked the funnel so I resorted to old school metal spoon. When I filled the last jar to the top there was a small amount left and I scraped it out and eat it; wow what a tasty preserve! I think I'll be making more of this, as well as the Apple Strupel.

Working in pairs

This was the last of my productivity today, indeed while I was making the preserve I was on and off of a video call with my day job. With A glued to her computer (with a few help breaks at the bottling times) the men were also hard at work. First thing as I've said there was a large amount of cement mixed up. After this they split into two teams again with Orhan and Sally up above Room 13 doing the brick filling in, and Bekir working with Mahmet to carry on with the wooden frame. Such efficiency.

I had an afternoon of trying to get work done, spending some pleasant time on a conference call with England with my lead dev and friend, and making a bit of progress there finally. It was nice also to see a few of my colleagues and I promised a video tour some time so I'll have to sort that out. After I got off the call I was tired from the heat and humidity and so I went to read on the sofa and then, as it is too short for me to lie down on, I went through to the bedroom and read, then dozed, then read again. I woke up to see what looked like a person hanging off the edge of the roof above the bedroom window but it was just a t shirt.

Starting to put out the tarpaulin

I returned to Room 13 and A was still working so I put another of the storage racks up and screwed it into place, then started the process of tidying and clearing stuff out of Room 13 as it was starting to get really cluttered. After a short while A joined in and a flurry of activity began, with the room becoming much cleaner really quickly. I went to the bedroom to collect up the spare change in there and put into a bottle and saw that the men were starting to finish for the weekend and they were rigging the tarpaulin over the top of the bedroom, and without me even asking. I popped out and snapped a picture, then tipped the water that was in the seedling tray out but I spotted that some of the seedlings had been pulled out and were swimming. These I replanted and then I pulled the tray inside so tomorrow I can plant them out in the fenced garden underneath bird netting.

The storm sweeps in

All this time we could hear distant thunder and looking out the back there was some serious looking cloud heading in our direction. The men worked hard to nail down the tarpaulin and ensure it was well secured before heading off for the weekend.

Pouring off the guttering

Once again A took them and I stopped back to start cooking and just as the left there was a massive flash and bang of lightning that must have struck a few hundred yards away. Wow. I rushed round AGAIN and shut all the windows and all the doors and then set myself to washing up and preparing dinner as the storm raged outside.

Torn tarpaulin

The storm was really fierce, the electric even dropped for a very short time at one point, but it blew over and finally the sun was out even while it was still raining really hard directly over head. The thunder was still rumbling around a lot but I popped onto the roof to check on the tarpaulin and sure enough, even though it had just been put up, one of the eyelets had already ripped out and it was flapping madly. There was no way I was going to get around and fix it tonight so hopefully there is no more strong wind tonight and I can get it resecured tomorrow morning.

The pools are back on the roof

Once again there was loads of water all over the roof but I was too distracted by the fact the storm was still around, and I was trying to prepare dinner and scrub the oven, to deal with it. This will be dripping through all night now.

A slight crack in the clouds allows sun through

A rainbow appeared

Super black clouds

A text me to say that the weather was so bad she had had to stop on the way and would be a little late back so I took the opportunity to take pictures of the clouds and there were some amazing shots so you are here treated to a couple of them.

Storm clouds in the distance

About half an hour after she would have normally been back I heard the boys start to barking and knew that A had made it back safely. I had just spotted some more stunning cloud formations so I legged it to the roof, then came back to find her in Room 13 looking a little shaky. It turned out that she had not just had to stop on the way back but on the way the men had told her to stop as well as the rain was so heavy, the lightning was striking in the fields on either side and rocks were washing down off the newly dug banks either side of the road. Not pleasant and I'm glad she made it back safely.

And so this blog has taken HOURS as I have not been in a hurry at all and dinner was lovely (roast tatties, pork and cabbage with butter and onions in it and LOADS (and I mean loads) of gravy) and the weather has been up and down with some more rain but no more thunder yet, awesome music, Fawlty Towers while munching, and a lot of relaxing. So now while Michael Jackson plays quietly I'm going to put those pictures in and then head to bed.