Working weekend

After yesterday's workmen disaster I was up bright and early, before the birds and even the sun.  I had slept well with the aid of additional heat from the electric blanket - what an invention that was!  Once I got my eyes working I was off to put the kettle on and to grab proof that I am not always a lazy git and that I do beat the sunrise sometimes.

Before the sun

So the workmen were due to arrive at 8am which meant I had loads of time to spend drinking coffee and becoming human, ish.  I fed Sassy first this morning as she has been becoming very impatient and started to bang on her cage with her hind legs at 7.15. Such a noise! Rambo has no interest in food early in the morning so I left him outside chewing his Kong and wandering around for a while.

After my very lazy day yesterday I had a lot of things to be getting one with today but it was taking a lot to build the motivation.  After my second coffee I shook myself and took the wardrobe frames out to the patio, putting Rambo away because I was planning to bleach every millimetre of the frames to totally de-rat them.

Bleached

It did not take very long at all but with the amount of bleach and the ice in the hose pipe, my hands took a real battering, between! It was a cold start today. Still, it was done and my first job completed and left in the sun to dry.

Hose ice

Whilst I was working away the drainage builders arrived.  I had expected a few men and a machine of some sorts to help dig the trenches around the edge of the building.  Two men turned up, on foot and wielding a pickaxe and a shovel each. I am not sure they realised how much rock was around the building. I went out again later after another coffee and was very pleased to see that they had made good progress.

New workers

One of my next jobs was to wash more clothes that had been soiled in the rat infestation. Now, I thought I had a fair amount of clothing, but well, look at the Hawaiian collection of my other half.  Or, should I say HALF of his collection. Yes, that is correct; there were two loads of shirts.

Rainbow explosion

The main task of the day was to clear the rat room, or the downstairs store room and tool room. I had a lot of moving of stuff and separation to do.  The stuff we were keeping was put out into the bottom corridor just outside the room and everything else was thrown to a pile in the middle of the room. After several wheel barrow loads to the top bank and to the rubble pile, the bonfire had been started.

Bonfire beginnings

I was going to light it today, but I decided that there is a lot of old wood still laying around from the old window frames and so tomorrow I may start bringing that up to burn as well.  No point in doing it twice.

After much hard work and some moving around of very heavy poles, I had finally cleared the room and aired it sufficiently today to dry out a little.  This room is so damp at the moment but hopefully now the drainage is going in we can start to dry all of the ground floor out and move forward with sorting it all out.  This was the final product of my hard labour!

De-ratted

Clearing the room out had taken a good few hours. I was quite tired and achy afterwards as some of the stuff in there was very heavy.  Also, even just getting up the courage to touch things was taxing, especially that box which contained two of the rats.  The smell was unbearable!  It is safely on the bonfire now though.

To clear my head after being in the dusty room for so long I decided to take a walk with Rambo around the land.  I saw a couple of the bulbs had bloomed.

Beautiful bloom

The men were working away and taking regular breaks as it looks to be heavy work and very hard going.  One of them even wears a supportive belt for his back, you know, like a weightlifting belt. More progress had been made to the front -

Trench

 And to the side -

Trench 2

The Mr had asked me yesterday to take a photo of the olive trees and I really couldn't be bothered - so lazy - but here they are, still battling away. They really are hardy little trees.

Gaining strength

It was now late afternoon and I had wanted to do some planting.  I took a beer and my gardening stuff to the balcony and proceeded to pull out the lettuce seeds and prepare the soil boxes.  One curly leaf and one iceberg sown and awaiting lettuce babies!  Hurray!

I also sowed some flower seeds.  Chrysanthemums and Desert Bluebells.  My Pappy always loved Chrysanths.

And so it was time to bring in the rainbow explosion from the line.  I have run out of hangers for now, so again, this is merely half of the collection.  He better never mention my clothes or shoes again. Ever.

Bright!

So, exhausted after a pretty full on day, I parked myself by the petchka and dozed off for an hour before dinner (heating up on top of the petchka) was ready.  I think I will sleep very well this evening and I hope I awake with the motivation I need to carry on with yet more tasks around the Old School.

Leka Nosht.
A xx