Internal decorating

Well another day done, another day closer to my guests arriving and today is one month before we leave which brings home how little time we actually do have. I did forget to put into my post yesterday the news that two good friends are going to be in Bulgaria possibly the last few days before we leave so I may get some very late, and very welcome, guests. Fingers crossed the flights all work out.

The sun starting to glow through the low cloud

So anyway, after I published last night we listened to more totally random music including some Butthole Surfers which is more than any person should really be subjected to at any time so then it was to bed and I must say I slept pretty well last night though I woke up once again still feeling like sleeping; 6.30am every day is just too early. When the renovations are over it will be such a pleasure to relax and not have an alarm call every morning for a bit. The start today was a little brighter than it has been recently without the full cloud cover so there was a bit of a sunrise for me to photograph for you.

Lovely bright sun over the valley

I had got up pretty much with the alarm today and had all sorts of plans on things I would achieve while the men were being collected but first of all I had to have a cup of tea to try and wake myself up. It wasn't greatly successful sadly however my little trip onto the balcony to get pictures of the gorgeous misty valley with the sun rising brightly over head.

Bent drill bit and the finished curtain rail

The first thing I planned on doing was putting up the curtain rail over the internal window to the bedroom, for privacy. I got together my tool and set to drilling the first hole only for the special masonry bit I was using bent in half. Not the start I was looking for. After about twenty five minutes more faffing about with better drill bits, the level, manual screwdrivers and other stuff I finally had the rail up and the level was telling me it was perfectly flat, even if it looked a bit wonky. Success. I was also hoping to put the last shelf onto the record player unit this morning but after all this hassle I just went and did the washing up and put the kettle on for when A got back.

Mmmmm bacon and eggs

To cheer myself up, and because I've been good and not had a fried breakfast for the past few days, I made myself bacon and eggs and had two huge butties with lashings of brown sauce and washed down with a cup of tea. The breakfast of champions, and me.

Progress continues

So the men went straight to work in the guest room when they got here and it was only when I realised it was quiet that I noticed Orhan wasn't around. A had been told but not totally understood what Bekir said so I asked later and was told he had been out to a disco the night before and had a sore head so couldn't work. This caused much hilarity for everyone. Anyway, to what they men who had come to work were doing. Bekir was fitting the new door for the guest room while Sally was cladding around the internal bedroom window (muttering about how badly my curtain rail was put up) so he could finish off and sort the damage caused by the window being fitted.

Filling in the window ledge

It took a little bit of time to get the door fixed properly (and at one point I was walking past when it was balanced in place and it fell with a bang and I am sure Bekir thought I had touched it, though I really hadn't) but when he was happy with it Bekir moved on to doing the final new window ledge which involved metal work and then large amounts of concrete that had to be mixed then brought up in buckets by Shengen.

Sally and his concreting skills

Sally today has done wonders with his concreting and plastering skills, going round like a demon and smoothing, filling, polishing and generally improving a number of locations. He has made the internal window beautiful including carefully removing all the plastic stickers and other extraneous materials on the window, he added some strips of wood to the new door on the guest room door so it would be flush with the wall and then filled in around it with the concrete and he finished off the other polishing around all the other windows and finally he filled and polished the holes in the guest room walls which we had dug out when stripping the walls. He has worked like a trojan.

Smoothing the floor

Bekir has by no means been idle today and after finishing off his task on the window ledge he found that we didn't have the right paddle mixer to attach into the SDS drill so we dropped down to the builders merchants to get the correct fitting, and I also changed my mind and did buy the switch to put on the outside plugs. Having a red light glowing when the power is on to external plugs just strikes me as sensible. When we got back (he pointed out where the old army barracks are, and told me the ruins in the river valley were a shop, whether one that was started being built and was left or was knocked down I don't know) he was straight on with doing the tiling on the floor. This was, actually, after lunch which for me was cheese and tomato butties which were lovely.

The first floor tiles are laid

He had to put a very thin skim of concrete down and allow it to go off (which happened very quickly obviously) before getting going with the thicker layer of scored concrete into which the tiles were set. We found out today that the walls aren't quite square in there and so he's also having to shave a slightly larger amount off each tile as he progresses into the room towards the door. This is where I am really hoping I bought enough tiles else I'll have to get more and they may sell out.

Crunching his lovely dry bread

Ralf and Rambo have both been relatively good today, though I did put Rambo away this morning as when I let him out he went straight into his pond and started digging up rocks from it which he would then deposit on the porch to be tripped over. Ralf actually ate all of his breakfast this morning again which meant that at lunch time I gave him a heel of bread. He didn't eat it immediately but later in the afternoon I spotted him munching away and getting crumbs all in his bed; ahh the pleasures of being a single doggie.

Sassy's winter house in place

Other than paid work today I had not been idle and I put some effort into finishing off Sassy's winter house and through the day, a little now and a little then, I managed to finish it off which is great. I also cleaned Sassy out today, washing her cage and giving her fresh everything and also finally I put out the baking tray toilet for her in the hope she may start using it again. She is now fully ready to go over to S and S's for the winter. Talking of which I had quite an amusing conversation with the kennels this morning who thought it was today we were arriving with the boys. They laughed when I said it is a month and everything is still fine.

It is now more than half done

The tiling had gone apace and there is even more done than in this picture which was taken a bit before home time. I had a good conversation with my friend before they left where she asked to borrow Bekir for a short while tomorrow and also helped me see that getting the electrics done was a far lower priority than finishing the whole of the roof off so this has been communicated to the men who seem happier because of it. Finally it turns out that today is six months exactly since the day I first met S and my internet was connected as dead on 5pm it stopped working. Perfect timing really as the office was shut so I was looking at a night without internet and with no blog for you guys. I went to ask Bekir to ring the emergency number to ask them to turn it back on until tomorrow and it turns out that Shengen knows a thing or two about my provider and was able to get into their system and switch me back on for a few days; I'll be down there tomorrow to buy one more month.

Glowing end to the day

And so the men were taken home and I came back to a fire that was burning and then wasn't and spent a while smoking myself out trying to fix it; I must have moved whatever it was that was blocking the airflow as since then it has burned very nicely. I now have my early morning job lined up tho which is to clean out the petchka including the flue. Fun. Dinner was pork sweet and sour and it took ages to cook so I got a large amount of this typed before we ate and watched another Father Ted. The sunset was lovely again and A took the camera onto the roof with Ralf to get this picture.

So tomorrow will be paid work (got a really good bit to work on) and clearing the petchka pipes and seeing the guest room finished and watching more tiles go on the roof I hope. Now is finish my small beer and then sleep.