Today it rained

Today I have managed, against all the odds, to get around to starting the blog before I take the men home. This is a good thing. Also a good thing is the fact that my shouting at the motorcycling idiots seems to have had a small effect; last night they were quiet after about 9.30, and actually were pretty quiet most of the evening also. Now I just need them to stop all together and I will be happy.

First thing, only a small glow

Some illumination, slowly

It must be close now....

The first glimpse of the day

Already feeling its warmth by this time

So, after a pretty good nights sleep for both of us it was a routine start with Louise (who apparently had checked whether A was awake a bit earlier, seen she wasn't, and gone back to bed!) asking to go out and me staying in bed with my eyes firmly shut pretending to be asleep until it was time to go n the balcony. The days are definitely shortening as I am finding it easier to catch the sunrise every day. I took a series of shots for you this morning as we sipped our brews and tried to wake ourselves up. It was lovely.

Digging away like mad on the bank

As per usual the puppies were down on the land while we were enjoying our morning and they were exploring all over the place. They went right up to the top bank and then down and round the back of the chicken house (and got called back when they did this; we're not totally sure of the completeness of the fence back there) and finally down around the new drainage at the back where they must have got a scent of something as they were both digging madly for a fair while. When we called them in they went legging it round to the front door to be let in; they are certainly getting better at this recall thing.

It needs a few more coats

While A was out collecting the men I kicked myself and did a little bit of work; I put a coat of white paint on the double doors. This did not work as well as I planned as we really need to primer or undercoat as all the paint just soaked straight in. Unfortunately when I was in the shop with Bekir slightly later they didn't seem to have any and so I'll just have to put lots of coats on. Never mind. We did have a successful trip as it happens and the only thing left to get is the little pump to power the water out of the reservoir which we'll get tomorrow in the main town.

Making the window sills

Sally got straight on with mixing up cement and filling the frames he had made the previous day for the new windowsills. By the time I got back from the shopping trip he had already done one and was well on his way to finishing the second however we have had a real lack of water, none at all outside most of the day, and were struggling for enough to keep work going.

Floor tiling, finally

Bekir was also making use of the water as he was laying tiles on the floor in the bathroom, another step towards completion in time for my parents. There is still a lot to be done but as per usual they are pulling it out of the bag and I'm now pretty confident that (water permitting) showers will be possible by tomorrow evening.

Sleeping the sleep of the very tired puppy

Lunch was a really nasty spaghetti carbonara that I managed to burn the spaghetti on and then just didn't make it right after that but it filled a hole and I only sulked for a bit and slept for half an hour afterwards pretending that the day was over and I didn't have to go back to work. The girls were sleeping hard on their makeshift sofa chair bed thing, having played a lot during the morning.

Now filling in the gaps around the sides

After lunch Sally finished with the windowsills and asked for the next job so we got him to fill in the gaps on either side of these windows. It is important to us that this section of the house is windproof and we can at least try and keep the dust down and so on he got with this task and finished it very quickly indeed. Now we can move the sofas back into place down there (a temporary home for them but one I have found I like a lot so maybe a sofa or two will need to live there permanently eventually) and this will contribute to making the upstairs corridor look less cluttered.

Sally just getting started on finishing Room 13

Another thing that will help a lot is getting Room 13 done and as I'm not confident in cutting tiles (I did a botched-enough job of laying normal tiles) with Sally again looking for a job we asked him to finish it off. He has now spent the remained of the afternoon carefully preparing the gaps we left so he can lay the tiles tomorrow. This will be really good and maybe we can get the fridge/freezer and cooker and other "kitchen" type things in there on Friday.

While we were watching Sally as he got started on this task we suddenly realised that there was water coming out of the tap in the kitchen (I'd left it on earlier so we would know when the water was on) and when I turned it to hot water after a minute or so we had some! I smiled a lot as I did all the accumulated washing up that had been sitting there for the last day or so while the water has been nonexistent. It's amazing what being able to wash up does for my mood and after this I have felt a lot happier. Now to be able to finally get clean again, after months of grubbiness.

Not quite as sunny as this morning

Bekir finished the tiling mid afternoon and legged it straight into the roof to start the plumbing up there. After a bit he came down to say that he needed a few more bits and so off we shot in Lucy to the little shop. It was then that the storm, which has been brewing all day with really high winds a lot of the day, finally hit us and it rained quite hard for a bit. We had to avoid a drunk man driving a Lada Niva full of watermelons (only in Bulgaria) who got to the really narrow bridge and stopped in the middle of the road having second thoughts, but other than that it was uneventful. I dashed straight onto the balcony on getting back to capture just how dark the sky had become, from the same spot as my morning photographs.

Where the water tank will go

As I sit typing this, at the end of photographs taken today, Sally is still scraping away in Room 13 and Bekir is still upstairs doing the plumbing. He has situated the tank which will now have to become part of my model railway but that was always part of the plan. It will become a mountain or something else interesting. Now it is fitted I can run the light behind it (we're going to use a light to shine through so we can see how much water there is) so that's another task for the next couple of days.

Right, I'm going to pause typing now and will do a quick update later, though this evening we both want to watch a film while we eat pizza and look forward to tomorrow, when my parents arrive :)

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Late in the day, still working hard

He got it plumbed in very quickly

So I'm back to finish this and publish it and only a couple more pictures to add as Bekir drills through the roof in Room 13 to allow him to plumb in the water tank. As of about half an hour ago there is no water getting up to it but tomorrow he'll put the pump in. Of course if, as the last two days, there is no water at all, not just low pressure, there's no way we'll be showering whatever happens. Standard.

When I got back it was to the news that the pizza we had planned was actually not in the freezer so we piled into Lucy and went to the takeaway in town we've used before. We've just finished eating them and I don't know if either of us are really in the mood for watching a film now; I kind of want to but it is hassle to get it set up. I am going to go outside and have a freezing cold wash now though so bye bye for now.