Lots of tiling

Here I am once again sat preparing to put words into this form so you all can click through and read about what has been going on in our world. What a strange thing; something which ultimately is for my own records, so I can look back on what has gone on during this amazing adventure, and so many of you out there reading it. I thank you all as it does make me feel more determined to keep it up and that will only help future-me to have a really accurate "on the day" record.

After I finished last night A was already asleep and I wasn't in the mood for bed so first I checked the bird house (they were locked away) and then I strolled the land for a bit before finally settling myself on the swinging chair on the porch. Rambo was there and he said hello then settled down and after a while I actually dropped off to sleep. Last night the moon was really bright; bright enough for sure to read by. I lay there dozing on and off wondering if I would be lucky enough to see a mouse but nothing like that happened. There were some awesome night sounds though and it was only when I got really thirsty that I went back inside. Thelma had got out of the bedroom somehow and greeted me as I climbed the stairs then cuddled for a bit on the sofa. I tried to sleep in the bedroom but due to a bit of snoring I couldn't drop off so I ended up dragging the fold out mattress into the guest room and "test driving" that room. I slept really well in the end, even with no cover at all, and woke up again after A was up and the birds were out and joined her on the balcony.

Wood about to be unloaded

While she was off collecting the men I turned the hay which is drying by the driveway and then fed Rambo his breakfast. The girls were really cuddly and both of them jumped on my lap and sat there the whole time it took him to eat. He was done before they got back and I was back upstairs working away. The wood had been cut over the previous night by Bekir and was all strapped up in the back of Thomas. I went to help them take the ratchet strap off and then unloaded with them.

Bekir planing the wood smooth

Before doing anything Bekir got cracking with planing the wood down. This will be used by Sally to make the frames for the doubles doors which lead from the vestibule into both the guest bedrooms. I watched for a bit then went inside to get back to work. I had half a day to make up today after the distractions in the week what with having to go to the shops etc and I wanted to get it out the way for this afternoon.

Sally starts to assemble the frame

Soon enough Sally was upstairs with all the wood now nice and smooth and he started measuring and cutting and getting together what they said would be a quick job to do the doors. I was really hoping that at least one set of double doors would be completed and hung today so I could get on with painting them over the weekend. He spent the rest of the day working away at these but used a manual saw rather than any of the multitude of different powered saws that I own. It will be a very good set of doors when they are completed.

Bekir cracks on with the bathroom

Bekir was back in the little bathroom getting on with the tiling and he was making really good progress. He has chosen (correctly, obviously) to start off with the walls and then do the floor later and he was working towards finishing the wall behind the shower, with the patterns reaching the roof. He did make very good progress and by lunch time was working up a ladder putting the top courses in place.

A gets cracking on with the Room 13 tiles

This was not the only tiling taking place during the day, as the title of the blog intimates. A and I both spent time in Room 13 laying tiles on the floor and trying to do it as well as possible. It is really hard to get them totally flat but we're not far off and at the end of the day we had nearly half the floor completed which is great.

The afternoon was taken up with dozing (first her, then both, then me) and tiling (mostly her) and going to ekont to pick up the Encyclopedia Brittanica I bought the other day and just generally sitting around as well. Oh I forgot the other thing Bekir did first thing was to help me carry the table top, pool table and wooden shelves I made down into the kitchen so they are out of the living room. They were heavy and there would have been no chance of me and A moving them.

Frames for the doors

Bathroom coming on a-pace

By the end of the day Sally had made up the two frames for the first double doors but not covered or hung them so this means I won't be able to paint them until Monday night at the earliest. Oh well we have other doors to paint (ours and the corridor one from the double guest room) which will be done this weekend. While driving home I had a good long think about this and came up with quite a nice idea for these doors which I shared with A and she likes.

Lovely clouds as we eat our dinner

Sun goes behind the storm clouds

When I got back she was sat on the balcony with a beer for me and so I joined her and we sat there until it was dinner time. I had requested bangers mash and gravy and she delivered and it was really nice, even with the strange red sausages they sell here. They'd do better in a sausage butty I think however it was really nice and we enjoyed the breeze which had sprung up as we sat out there.

Louise with the sausage, Thelma with nothing

Neither of us was really massively hungry so there was nearly a whole sausage left over. Normally we would chop this up into their dinner however we decided to try and give it to them in one piece and see what would happen. At first they fought over it a bit but then Louise got hold of it, ran to her bed, and Thelma just gave up and left her to it! Crazy. We decided because of this to chop it up so they had it taken away from them.

Gift from the little boy

While we were sitting eating we could hear cows on the top bank and they meandered their way into the moorland up there. We then saw the Special One with the little kid on his shoulders as they went chasing after them and herded them back to their land. He shouted up to us as he was going over the top of the land to go to the gate so I went down and the little kid ran in with a handful of blackberries he had picked. How lovely! I must admit A didn't want any so I ate them all.

Final glow from the sun

And so I settled to write this while A did the watering again. While I was typing I glanced out the back window and saw a lovely bright glow just on the edge of the hills where the sun had gone down and was now below the storm clouds massing. And what a storm. As I type this there are at least two cells around us with some awesome forked and sheet lightning, and big bangs from the thunder.

Big red moon

Before the storm came over too badly A came in to say the moon was a really bright red and so I gave her her camera and off she went to brave the thunder on the balcony to get some pictures. She snapped a fair few (and I also went out to get some with mine) but hers were the better.

So now I'm going to rush to get the pictures uploaded as the pressure here just plummeted (my ears went pop) and the storm is on its way. I'll try and get video if it gets really exciting.

Two days of hard work

Sorry for the super short blog yesterday; I really could not get away from the jobs in hand to sit down and write anything. Even today it is nearly 9pm before I am sat down to write this so a late night beckons. Never mind, it's been an epic two days which you're about to find out about.

The sun gives a hint it is on its way

Just the slightest edge showing

And there it is in all its glory

First of all yesterday morning I was quite awake first thing (A commented on how chirpy I was being, which tells you something, My reply was "it won't last" which it never does when you are that happy straight away. It is always better to enter the day slowly and build your feelings of joy. Anyway, this early energy meant I was straight up and out on the balcony with her before the sun was up and got to enjoy that lovely sight as it announced itself with a glow then suddenly sprinted up into full visibility. I had a lovely comment on the blog the other day about the notch and where it goes to and all I can say is when they were building the new road they unearthed a stone age settlement around here so there could well be ancient worshiping places. True to form they took pictures and buried it again under rubble.

With one cup of tea in me I decided that I would not wait any more and would go straight outside to start scything, seeing as Bekir had sharpened the blade for me. First of all I took it for some practice swings around the area that we had strimmed the other week. The head came a little loose, as it always has, but it cut quite well and looking back at this video I am not too disappointed with my form; muscle memory from last year is obviously kicking in.

I did some more scything

With the wedge firmly hammered in, and the hammer down with me on the front, I set to work on the bottom part of the land. This was before A set off and she left as I was half way through and I had set the challenge of getting right down to the front fence on this line before stopping. I got very close but it was super hot work even that early before the sun was up and I stopped a few metres short. I was again quite pleased with how I was doing though and the grass is piled up drying now which won't take it long in this heat.

We have vestibule lights in

I went back inside having stacked all the cut hay as I say and collapsed into my chair and worked for a bit, until A got back with the men. They were not that bothered that I had done the betonkontakt the night before; I think they had considered the job complete but I didn't mind really as I'd rather have done it and it not needed doing. I then made myself a monster breakfast with lots of bacon, some egg, some fried tomato and toast, and it really hit the spot from all the effort put in first thing. The men were getting on with things in the guest suite and pretty quickly Bekir was able to show off the lights in the vestibule which were working.

Sally plastering the bathroom

Sally was the one with the pressure on as he had to completely plaster the bathroom so tiling could begin. He always works with a smile on his face which is great and he laughs a lot whenever I'm in there taking pictures. Anyway over the weekend we had decided on getting a ceiling fan for the bedroom and had had some difficulty with the shipping costs on the website for the one we found we liked however their service by email was excellent so I had to head into town to send money via bank transfer to pay for it. It was a really warm day already and I was in and out quickly without stopping anywhere but the bank.

Sharing a chair

When I got back I found Thelma and Louise trying to take over A's chair once again. They are triers.

Filling in the holes in Room 13

True to form I was feeling a little down by the time it got to lunch which is standard when you wake feeling so positive. I kept moving however and slowly recovered my mood. Lunch was yogurt with my new pear preserve in it and tasted lovely and then slightly later I got Bekir to help me mix up a small amount of cement so I could fill in the holes in the floor in Room 13 in preparation for tiling. This didn't take me long at all and so we again blocked the room off so the girls can't get in there to dig it up.

Top corridor windows

We had been promised that the window people would return on Tuesday to do the windows however Tuesday came and went with no sign so I got Bekir to ring them and they promised they'd be there on Wednesday. It got to quite late in the day and no sign and then suddenly there was beeping from the lane and it was two new people I'd not seen before come to work on the windows. They were not happy about Rambo but I refused to put him in the trailer as it was too hot and just stood with him while they walked past. The set to on the windows in the upstairs corridor and at first said they would not be able to do much at all as they didn't have the tools with them but eventually ended up knocking the bricks out so we had huge holes in the wall over night.

Putting in the light fittings

Sally was working away hard all through this and Bekir got involved to help with some of the window work while also getting a good amount done on the electrics for the guest room. We have chosen to put the old lights back up in there as the main room lights and so he was taking the light fittings he had cleaned up and fitting them to the ceiling. They look great and it really vindicates the decision to keep some of the old fittings from the old use of the school and have them feature in the renovations.

Clearing up after the window men

Once the day job had finished I started the task of collecting the whole bricks that had been knocked out of the wall by the window fitters and transporting them downstairs. At first I did this by hand but then I got the wheelbarrow. Before they had finished it was time to take the men home which I did and it was a quiet trip back as we were all so very hot. I saw the window fitters washing themselves at the water tap on the hill as I came back up so I knew they had left and as soon as I parked I was back to cleaning. This took me a fair while and it was nearly dark before I had swept and left it totally clean. So that was the reason for no blog and that was the reason for shifting lots of wheelbarrows of stuff around last night.

Fried rice for dinner

Dinner was a lovely fried rice concoction which really hit the spot and it was nice to pause in the cleaning to sit on the balcony and enjoy this. It was still rather hot, but a nice breeze was blowing, as we were sat there but one thing we really noticed was just how quiet it was. No car noise from the new road, no music from town. All we could hear was ourselves and the birds. Outstanding. THIS is what I want it to be like.

More clearing

With dinner over we went back to clearing stuff and before heading down to do the watering round A threw the broken window frames off the balcony onto the back bank for later removal up to the bonfire circle. I was still on with the rubble and dust and was throwing it all out the back door into the mess that is there and will be cleared up when we finally do this part of the renovation.

After the sun set

Just as I was getting to the end of the cleaning the Little Lady came over to look at what we were doing and have a chat. She stayed for a little while which was nice and she was admiring of the holes in the wall for the new windows, and the progress in the guest suite. While she was here I noticed how the sun had lit up a cloud in a beautiful way so I snapped a very quick picture from the back window which came out great.

Washing outdoors again

I was feeling really sweaty and horrible after all the heavy work clearing the top corridor so as soon as the Little Lady left I was out to the water drum and having the most amazing wash ever. The water was really warm, having been in the sun all day, and I just wanted to keep pouring it over myself for ages. Eventually I stopped and dried off and then it was A's turn. We were up and in bed pretty quickly after this and both of us slept pretty well though I was awake in the night and took the girls for a toilet trip in the hope that they wouldn't disturb A early doors.

Sadly this attempt did not work out and it was really early again when Louise was jumping up and demanding to go out. We're sure she hears A moving as she gets close to awake and that is it; she's up and on the bed. Not cool at that time in the morning. Today I really struggled to get going but eventually I joined A on the balcony. I was stiff from all the physical work I'd done the day before so chose to not do any more scything but decided I would begin to clear the living room. I got all the bricks that were up there moved downstairs by the time the men were back and had shifted the windows as well. A was off out again almost straight away to get the floor tiles for the bathroom and I stayed and got on with my work, having cut my finger quite badly on some glass earlier on.

Windows fitting

I had Bekir ring the window men at about 9.30 when they had not arrived as we were not happy with the gaping hole in the wall considering this weekend is set to storm and storm quite badly. Surprisingly enough they arrived quickly after this and got stuck into fitting the windows in these holes at least. Unfortunately they had knocked a course of bricks too many out the day before so while the windows are now in, there is a big gap under each one which we'll need to fix for tomorrow.

Finally tiles go on the wall

Sally smiling as he joint strips

The morning was taken up with Bekir doing some small tasks on the electrics while Sally fixed up the ceiling in the other guest room. When A returned with the new tiles (which match perfectly which is great) this prompted Bekir to get started on the tiling finally which was a great relief to me as I had been a bit worried about only having a week until my parents are here.

There was quite a list of things to get before we could start our own tiling, and after lunch I had a word with Bekir that I wanted the doors for the guest room made before the other room was started. We headed down to the builders merchant and picked up everything we needed, including the new buckets for the guest room bathroom humanure, finally. There was some confusion about the doors which Bekir thought I wanted to have swinging in and out and so I almost got some ridiculously expensive hinges but this was sorted out pretty quickly in the end.

First ever attempt at tiling for her

And so it was back up and A got on with beginning to tile Room 13. Bekir gave us some time, stepping away from his work for a bit, to help set out the beginning of the tiles, snip off the small corners that needed removing for the first few tiles near the wall, and then Sally helped me to mix some terrakol and then we were on our own. I was working so A was able to get on with it without me hovering which was a benefit I think.

And for me

Once I finished my work day she asked me to take over and slightly reluctantly I did however I found that it wasn't as hard as I had thought it would be. If you are really generous with the mortar, really careful with actually putting the tile down, and really gentle while moving it into place then it turned out to be quite easy to keep it flat and even.

How we ended the day

And so it was suddenly the end of the day. Before we left Bekir used my new chainsaw to chop up some wood to take back to his so he can use a tool in his shed to prepare the frame for the doors and he said it is a very good chainsaw so that is good; maybe I'll even use it one of these days. I dropped them off near his house and then headed back and it was really hot, up to 40 degrees even that late.

Again the sky after the sun had set

On getting back here I sat on the balcony with A then we had dinner which was belly pork, wedges and garlic bread, and then I was straight in here to get this done while she did the watering round (gutted again to have missed it).

Now it is about 1.5 hours after I started which considering the length of the blog isn't too bad. It is, however, still up towards 30 degrees inside and at 10.20pm that is less pleasant. The heatwave is due, as I said, to break over the weekend which is typical as we've been invited to go to Greece by the neighbours again on Sunday. We've told them it depends on the progress of our work which does put pressure on getting the floor done. Watch this space.

Hard working

Hey, super short update today. Loads has happened but you'll have to wait until tomorrow to hear about it because this is what I will be doing for the rest of the evening...

Shifting bricks downstairs

Yes, it is as hard work as it looks and I've sweat dripping off me, and swarms of flies around me.... But hopefully our windows will be sorted tomorrow and then there'll be no more flies inside, or least far fewer....

Dust, sweat and beers

Hello there everyone. It's been another full on day and again I'm late starting this update however I'm not feeling quite so braindead this evening so hopefully it won't be quite such a struggle this evening. I didn't get any reports of typos in the update yesterday which was a surprise as normally when I feel like that I am quite lazy in my typing.

A's tomatoes in the raised bed

Lidl bought chilis doing well again

A's peppers are doing really well too

My vine has grown well

More super growth

Anyway, on with the update. First of all a raft of pictures taken yesterday evening by A as she did the watering round. We have had a lot of productivity again (the amazingly tasty sweetcorn only being the first to come to harvest) and it shows that while some of the land is very rocky, dry and not great for growing, we also have areas which are excellent. As I was commenting to Chaz and Ivan the other day, as our Humanure gets producing and we get several cubic of good compost onto the land every year that will only help loads.

Sun appears

When I went to bed last night I had a slight headache and when I woke in the night it had turned into a real stinker which lasted all through the night. A was woken quite early by Louise jumping on her (she also came to say hello to me but I was pretty asleep and with the headache battering me so much I didn't allow her to really wake me) so she was up and about from that point, other than a quick cuddle later and to bring me a brew which, to me, appeared like magic as I was asleep when she brought it. I sipped from the brew a few times and then got the energy to get up, get some headache pills, and join her on the balcony again. The sunrise had been absolutely stunning again but also the girls were out on their morning exercise which A had videoed this time. They have so much energy in the mornings and really love chasing around and recently their range has extended over nearly all the 2.5 acres of our property which they are just loving.

Despite having such a stinking headache I finished my brew and went downstairs to do the task for me before the sun came up; moving the dry hay from the patio into the green building. The first thing I had to do, before I could push each forkful through the window, was to move the old window frame that was stacked up against the wall. This had been saved last year at much effort with the idea of using it as a guide to build Sassy's run on the balcony. Unfortunately during the storms it actually blew completely off the flat roof and broke so now it will just be burned. The other thing is the ultimate location of Sassy's run is still under consideration.

Moving the hay into its storage

With access cleared I moved all the hay into storage in about 15 minutes, just working slowly and with quite small loads as I had to carry it underneath the very low hanging branches of the tea tree and if I took too much it just got caught in that. It was really good to get this done and actually when I came back inside and onto the balcony for another brew I felt a whole lot better for having kicked on and done it. My theories on the headache involve the 41 degrees in Kardjali and also the ridiculous amount of fly spray we had used the night before as we were overrun with flies. I am really careful to drink loads and I had almost 2L of water on top of all the other drinks during the day, so I do not think it was dehydration. Anyway, I was just relieved that it had passed.

All of Room 13 is now sealed

When A headed out to get the men I paused in my day job, which I had started for a few minutes, to complete my morning tasks. First of all I washed up in hot water A had put in there earlier and then I got the brush and got on with doing the last bits on the floor in Room 13. I was not quite finished by the time they returned but it didn't take me much longer and so we left it to dry all day (some of it has a LOT of stuff on it as they are deep holes with lots of dust which will next be concreted over before we tile). This is a great step to have done and hopefully tomorrow we may start the concrete and tiling.

Resting on the power lines

Clinging to the wall and bricks

The swallows which nest around us have for the last few days been joined by a huge number of their mates as they prepare to migrate. A was outside and called for me to get a picture of them and so I did, both congregating on the power lines and also clinging to the walls. This is the style of flock that I remember seeing here in previous years and which I just don't really remember from last year. It is good that A is getting to see this.

Waterproof strip, and stabilising bricks

I had forgotten to feed Rambo this morning, what with all the other jobs I did, so A went do this while I settled back into working. I did, however, pay quite a bit of attention to what was happening in the bathroom as progress was going on. I was able to watch as they used some of the waterproofing from the roof to bend over the bottom of the wall and onto the floor, behind where the plasterboard will go, to act as a barrier to leaks and then they used old bricks to fill the bottom part of the wall as well.

Bekir fits the plasterboard

After this it was full steam ahead with the plasterboarding for the men and this took them most of the rest of the day, what with having to fit awkward shapes and at one point there was some changes to the boarding they had done in the roof. Mid afternoon (and jumping ahead of the narrative here so forgive me when I go back in time in a minute) they ran out of joint strip so A had to leg it to the shop to get more while Bekir distracted himself with lighting in the bedroom and vestibule while Sally did some Betonkontakt on the walls but once we had more supplies Sally was back on finishing the joint stripping. More of this later, though.

Designer Air Macks, special from Nike for Bulgaria

The thing that scuppered our day today was about 11am the internet completely dying. I could keep working but A is unable to do anything without it so she text her boss and we decided that if it didn't come back we'd go to town at lunch to the office to complain. Lunchtime came round and still no internet so down we went and we requested an engineer which was promised us immediately. From there we headed to the market where I bought some more flipflops (though not the ones I wanted) and then A went to a different stall where they tried to overcharge us as we're English (first price: 20 lev to which a "no, too expensive" immediately brought the price down to 10 lev). We walked away from that stall and the first stall, where I bought mine, called us over and she bought exactly the same flipflops for 8 lev. I don't mind being slightly overcharged for a few things however this stall was very rude so whatever price they re-quoted I would have walked away, cheeky so and so's.

This mainly just amused us though and we were off for more purchases before heading home. We went past the hardware store to find when our buckets were due in and were told Thursday so that's in the diary now. When we got back the men were working again already; they are also feeling the pressure. We had some food (really lovely cheese and tomato butties with the lovely fresh bread from the men's village) and then the balance of our lunch was used up moving windows from the living room down to the store room downstairs, so the men can get straight on with the living room when they are done in the guest suite.

I had asked Bekir for help on sharpening my scythe and during the morning he had suddenly started on it so I grabbed the video camera. I want to be able to do this my self however I am a little nervous of the technique as you can see. He did say I could hammer it if I wanted however it should be good like this so tomorrow morning I will be down in the long grass by the driveway swinging the scythe again and getting back in shape.

Chainsaw maniac

The rest of the day was working so I bring you a couple of small amusing moments in our breaks. First of all I promised you a picture of chainsaw and so, rather than a boring picture here is me looking scary. With a chainsaw. That isn't running. Yeah, I hadn't yet tightened the chain and got it running with Bekir's help so I wasn't about to kill myself running it just for a picture. I got the chain almost right and Bekir did check it out and sorted it out for me just before he left.

Rambo getting a cooler shower

It has been super hot again today but we're seeing a new pattern to the weather, as observed yesterday. We are no longer seeing the katabatic winds but it is now clouding over just after lunchtime and staying cloudy until after sunset. This is not so bad as it stops the flamethrower affect of the sun however it has been feeling a lot more muggy with it. Rambo has been struggling a bit and so today A got the hose and managed to get him cooled off with it. Shortly after the photograph he ran away then shook himself dry all over her but I missed that with the camera unfortunately.

Where's Louise?

Louise has a thing for hiding under things; if there is a chair on the balcony she'll choose to sit under it rather than in the open. During the afternoon today she hopped onto A's chair and squeezed herself back behind her as she sat, in her way. A then got up to do something and when she came back Louise had stretched herself out over the whole chair but not only that, she had hidden underneath the towel that was there. This in 34 degree heat inside in the shade. Strange little puppy.

Working into the evening

It was time to take the men at about 6pm as normal and Sally had finished the joint stripping while Bekir had made good progress on the lights. As I drove I asked them if they wanted me to finish off the betonkontakt in there and I don't know if there was a misunderstanding but they said yes. The other amusement on the way was a few drops of rain which prompted the usual jokes that it would rain in their village but not mine. Anyway when I got back I didn't stop but got straight into the bathroom to finish off the sealant onto the wall at first and then the floor. The dust on my bottom is because of sitting on the scaffold to get back down off it. It actually didn't take long to do this and I finished before dinner was cooked.

Dinner time

A had poured me a beer so I went onto the balcony as soon as I finished and we sat out there for a bit enjoying the sight of all the birds out in their compound. Dinner was ready shortly after which we again ate out there, Jerk Chicken with a lovely potato and egg based salad, and we enjoyed the lack of direct sunlight.

I have been unable again to help with the evening tasks as I have been doing this update so A did the watering, sorted the chickens out, and is now going on the warpath against flies in the bedroom. I have some orange juice to drink and then I will probably get an early night again. We did get a kip this afternoon as well which I forgot about which was much needed; the siesta is a requirement in this sort of heat. And yes, the internet came back on during the afternoon with no visit from the engineer. We also had no window people come which was not good; we are insecure in several places and I really want this completed before my parents arrive NEXT WEEK!