A non-descript day

Today really has been a bit of a non-day, certainly in terms of photographs. I have hardly taken any! That will keep the update short, though, so it isn't all bad.

Once more a gorgeous start to the day

Last night we watched Idiocracy which I hadn't seen before and I enjoyed it a lot; A had watched it before and giggled all the way through it. The girls were really good and Thelma fell asleep on me and then Louise fell asleep on A. When I got up to get fly spray as we were being mobbed once more by big black flies Thelma went onto A and there she stayed for the rest of the film. It was a nice way to spend the evening and after we finished we headed to bed to read and get an early night. Bekir had rung and said the men were not going to work any days this week so we didn't have to be up early this morning so A took the girls out then came back to bed and we stayed there for quite a while. We weren't sure if the balcony/driveway workmen were going to turn up but turn up they did and they put in a full day. We did take our brews out onto the balcony even though it was quite late and it was really pleasant to have the sun warming our skin while we played with Thelma and Louise with the rope toy.

I headed straight outside after finishing the brew to chop wood. We have a huge amount to get through and are quite tempted by Bekir's offer to get someone in to chop it for us. It is nice to be self sufficient though and today I made a start on some of the larger logs. The chain on my saw is starting to need a sharpen which is a problem as I was going to go with Bekir to buy the correct tool to do this; I will probably have to go out and hope I find the right thing tomorrow as it got stuck and actually came off today which is not cool. This did lead me to give the whole machine a good clean and now it is running smoother again.

Fire burning our waste

With the log chopping done, I stopped because I was hungry but left the tools out to go back to it later in the day hopefully, I headed in and had breakfast and then got stuck into my working day properly. Almost the whole of my day has been spent stuck to this desk today hence the dearth of photographs. We have a guest arriving tomorrow, however, so while I was waiting for builds to happen during the late afternoon I cracked on with cleaning and tidying in preparation. We set a burn going in the oil drum and moved around the sofa and table so the table is nearer a light for eating together there in the evenings. We sat out there this evening actually and the light is still a little dim which is a shame; we'll have to get a brighter bulb.

Skimming the wall continues

We were joined by two builders today; Nikolai was working away on the driveway and the other guy was up on the balcony doing the skimming of the walls. The tiling dude didn't turn up today but then I think he may be waiting for the skimming to be finished. At lunch time A and I went onto the balcony to sit in the sun again and enjoy the peace and quiet and it was lovely; when this is all finished and we have the tiles down and the living door open we're going to really enjoy this balcony.

State of play at the end of the day

As I say Nikolai was hard at work out on the driveway and it was only in the evening, when I went out to recover the chainsaw which had been left outside all day untouched that I realised just how much he had done. With pneumatic drill and pickaxe he is digging away at widening the cut out for the driveway and parking bay and he's not far off finished. If they work tomorrow, I don't know if they will as they left quietly as always, he may very well complete this task.

Storm clouds over the Old School

The weather is forecast to change quite dramatically over the next few days which is typical as we have a visitor coming. Because of this we have covered over the wood outside and I brought the walnuts inside and spread them out just by the windows in the roof to continue drying. I spent about 2 hours shelling more walnuts this evening before dinner was ready and I reckon I will achieve my aim of finishing them tomorrow. The storm did come in quite fast but it seems to have passed already though more is forecast. We had to shut all the windows as the wind was quite strong.

So it's an early and short update done for the day. We've found more evidence of mice and rats today, with tidying, and this is now our number one priority. A has just done the washing up, technically a blue job, so we don't leave anything out for them and this will require a rethink of our evenings (or rather, mine). She's also sprayed peppermint everywhere which even if it doesn't prevent the rats is nice to smell. Tomorrow we move back into our own bedroom again to make way for our guest which I am looking forward to and wish we'd managed for this evening. The update may be late or missing entirely tomorrow so don't panic if you don't hear from me for a bit.