Once again I sit down to put in words what has happened today and once again I find myself lacking some motivation to do so, even though the pictures I have are brilliant and a lot has happened. Every time I decide to put off writing though I regret it the next day so, against my complaining mind, I will carry on.
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| Bank of cloud with sunset tiny in comparison |
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| Clouds glowing in the sunset |
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| A and Louise enjoying the sunset |
The update begins yesterday evening after we had eaten. As I said we decided to go up onto the balcony to enjoy the sunset and just generally relax and appreciate having such a lovely long evening together. We had put the swinging chair together to show Urkan earlier so that was what we sat on and it was very lovely indeed. My battery died in the camera as I was trying to take pictures and at first I resigned myself to having none but then the sky was so beautiful I ran down and swapped it out. I'm glad I did as I got some corking pictures in the end.
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| A bank of fire |
As the sun went down we went downstairs to check on the chickens and look at the progress that had been made by the men (as A hadn't really got to see it). As we were making our way downstairs the sun set and its reflection shone off the bank of cloud above us causing the most incredible colour to suffuse the whole area. This picture barely does it justice; it was as if a peach filter had been placed over everything. It didn't last that long but while it did it was stunning.
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| Grey overcast start to the day |
It was pitch black when I remembered to lock the chickens away and not long after we headed to bed. It wasn't the greatest night sleep ever, particularly as we were disturbed about midnight by a very loud car on the lane, which was misfiring and being revved a lot, and then a loud argument/discussion before it drove off. Another minute and I would have been down to join in the shouting; not good at that time of night. When A got up this morning I decided I would not lay around and I made a brew for us both. It was not the warmest morning, being completely overcast, so we didn't sit out to watch the sunrise and even if we had we wouldn't have seen anything.
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| Trimmed this tree down |
As it was so cold, and I hate sitting staring at the computer first thing, I dragged us both out onto the dust bowl with our brews once we were feeling alert enough and we spent the time before A had to go in shifting the bundles of kindling inside, and moving the larger wood onto its stack. Once A had gone I went back out again with the chainsaw and axe and made good use of both. First of all I cut up all the large lengths of wood into sections, including one sizable log. I then trimmed down the big tree and finally took the axe to the branches and made more kindling. Finally before heading inside I went with the fork and brought all the hay in under cover as the forecast is for rain, and I felt a couple of spots while I was out there. Despite the coolness of the morning I was pretty warm when I went inside after A got back with the men.
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| Sally scraping away |
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| Drilling through for the drains |
Talking of which once again they were straight on with their jobs. After I had done a bit of work I decided to go and have a look around the place. I found Sally up the scaffold stripping off the walls above the stairway and downstairs Bekir and Gyuner were working away towards the drain that we are installing to eventually take the kitchen and the washing machine water away.
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| Our own eggs, fried |
After not really wanting to have bacon and eggs over the weekend this morning I was in the mood and so was A so I selected the two oldest eggs in the box (31/8 and 1/9) and fried them up. I had slightly overdone the bacon as I got distracted while I was cooking it but they were pretty nice anyway. I think we need the girls to get slightly better at producing lovely orange yolks however what a great thing to eat eggs produced by your own flock.
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| Filthy puppy |
I was starting to get ready to go out to the hospital so A went to get the puppies in. I was just finishing off some work and so hadn't yet followed her down when she called me to shout for them. She was laughing as she said this and when Thelma appeared I could see why. She had obviously been digging in the cement as she was filthy! Haha. After the picture was taken A washed it off so it didn't dry on badly,
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| Covered in iodine again, but much better |
And so I went down to town with Bekir and we went straight to the hospital. The carpark was nearly full and there looked like a long queue at the clinic however it didn't take that long at all in the end and we were in with the nurse who looked happy, got an opinion from the doctor who agreed, and I was sent off with a scrip for the chemist for some antibiotic cream. We picked this up on the way to the builders merchant where Bekir bought the stuff for the drains and I picked up some irrigation stuff to play with as we are planning our lawn for next year. When I got back I showed A the finger and then put lots of cream on it. I've spent most of the rest of the day holding it funny so as to not knock it or accidentally scrape the cream off. Just now as I was typing this I felt a pain and pressed and finally some puss came out. I have now soaked it in salt water, typed the previous paragraph with one hand, and now am back to normal typing. It still looks pretty manky but it is definitely getting better finally. The plaster on the other finger was where I cut it while moving the tiles (or rather, while hitching the trailer) yesterday.
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| Is this a baby stick insect in the bottom of this cup? |
It was around coffee break time for the men so I went round and gathered their cups together to make it for them. Just as I was about to put the coffee into one of the cups I looked inside and saw what I think is a baby stick insect. I carefully put it into a safe place before making the brews. I then got stuck into work for most of the rest of the day as per usual.
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| Sad to see this go, but it has to |
Sally has done his usual today and very quietly made lots of progress. He has chipped the whole of the blackboard off the wall (something we didn't want to have to do but we decided that having the blackboard in the living room just wouldn't look right) and after finishing this has gone round and filled in all the holes in the walls. This prompted me, towards the end of the day, to talk to Bekir about the door in there and we think we can save it which is brilliant; no need for a new one.
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| The perimeter wall takes shape |
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| Plenty of drainage points |
The balcony has made really good progress today; they have finished the cement laying and almost completed the first course of bricks for the parapet around the outside. Also, as requested, there are regular drains all around the edge which will prevent us from having an accidental swimming pool out there should it rain heavily. The gaps in the wall are there for regular reinforced concrete columns and I believe they'll also be putting a concrete cap on the whole thing. The tiles should arrive on Thursday hopefully and they may even be ready for them by then; how exciting!
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| This room is nearly finished working in for now |
Gyuner was in the utility room drilling away to get rid of the old stand up toilet, and then dig further to remove the old drains. It was so loud in there that I worried about his hearing and so, when Bekir said that he needed to go to town again to get one more bit for the task I had set him to allow us to manually switch the free water into the house I asked A to give him my ear defenders which she did. The trip down to the shop was uneventful however on the way back Thomas started making a very strange whistling sound as his revs went up near 2000RPM. I stopped to check but couldn't see anything however I was so worried by it that I dropped Bekir off, told A I was heading to the garage, and then gingerly made my way back out and across using the now opened road to the garage.
When I got there I explained the problem and the mechanic very quickly found that it wasn't the turbo as I had feared but was a hole in the exhaust. Without any fuss they had him over a pit and welded him up, then did the balancing work I had been putting off since getting back here. The whole job: 18 BGN! I drove back muttering to myself about how cheap it was and how I wished I could pay more. They'll be getting more business from me soon enough as I want to take Julian over and leave him there to be fixed up properly.
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| Another pipe in the man hole |
I got back and was totally exhausted so after a brew I went to bed and was woken up just before it was time to take the men. Bekir had done the work for the ViK and free water and now we can switch between the two ourselves. Of course this isn't a solution for times like this evening when there is no water anywhere, ViK or free. So frustrating and to think that we thought our water issues were over at the weekend when the ViK came on. Fingers crossed they fix it soon though looking over to the new bridge it looks like there could have been a large burst pipe as section of the retaining wall underneath the bridge looks like it has collapsed completely. Not good.
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| Proper Irish food |
The journey to drop the men off was eventless, though Bekir has gone for a BBQ this evening with some friends which is cool. I got back to find the stew that A had started in the afternoon very close to completion and indeed I only got a couple of paragraphs of this done before it was time to sit down. Today's meal was a hint of things to come as the weather now turns a little autumnal; irish stew with Guiness to drink. It was absolutely lovely, though, and we have some left over for lunch tomorrow should we wish.
So now I'm coming to the end of this update; we're just heard some scratching coming from the window and found that it wasn't a mouse, rat or hornet but one of the flying black beetles trying to eat its way through the expanding foam. Time to wrap this up, have a cuppa, then go to bed.
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