Big pond push

Hello there and it is another late start to typing this update. This is entirely down to taking the men home late and the fact that my work was distributed unusually through the day which meant I didn't get this started while waiting to take them. It has been a good day though so onwards.

Another beautiful sight for us this morning

I think we both slept really rather well last night which was good. The sky was beautifully clear last night and one of the benefits of being in the guest room is you are laying right next to the window so I was able to watch the stars as I waited to drop off. When A got up for the puppies this morning I felt like staying in bed but instead I dragged myself up to try and do some washing up. There was no water at all however so that didn't happen but we did go out onto the balcony for the first time for a while to watch the sun come up. It was a way off when we first got there with the seasonal thick fog in the valley much in evidence.

A and the puppies on the balcony

The puppies have really been unimpressed with the change in sunrise time and every morning for the past few they have not stayed outside for very long at all but come straight back in and gone back to bed after doing their business. They came out on the balcony with us when we took our brews and proceeded to do their morning fight around our feet. Bless them. It really does bring a smile to your face no matter how tired you are when you see them bouncing around in the morning.

First glimpse of the sun for the day

Looking further South down the valley

Risen above a shelf of cloud; stunning

The sun eventually appeared and this morning it was exactly in the notch of the ridge across the valley. I took a fair few pictures over a few minutes and these are the best of them. A few weeks ago the arrival of the sun caused an immediate rise in the temperature however it is now getting late enough in the year that this rise was much slower today. I was still out there only wearing shorts, though, because I am nails.

A pile of rubbish we need to sort out

After a while we headed back inside and A got ready to go out. I had decided I wasn't going to be cutting any more wood until the woodstore is ready and after the visit from the gypsies yesterday when she left I put my gloves on and went out and sorted through the pile. I had some vague ideas that some of the metal drainpipes might be OK but in the end I only found a very few lengths suitable. The gypsies sadly didn't return today so this is something we'll have to organise independently.

Sweep sweep sweep sweep sweep

I went back to my desk after completing this and got stuck into my paid work which was nice to do. The balcony men arrived at their usual time and started cracking on with moving the scaffold around the corner and then a bit later A got here with the men. As the title of this update suggests today there was a big push by Bekir and Gyuner (most of the day just those two) to get the pond finished. The first task, and bless him he was at this for a long time, was to carefully sweep out the hole to get rid of as much dust and dirt as possible before the floor was laid.

Some pre-mix in the back of a flatbed

After the visit of the window man yesterday when a van started driving across and onto our property this morning I had some vague hope that it may be them here already. Sadly it was not the window people but a van containing some pre-mix which was emptied into a box just near the plum tree. This was obviously a time saving exercise as they had gone so slowly the day before doing the skimming.

Getting on with the pond

Meanwhile over at the pond the men were setting out the wooden frame for the walls. Bekir was also digging out the hole to put the upright in which we want to support a potential sun shelter for next summer and Gyuner was carrying on with the interminable task of sweeping the dust and dirt out of the way.

Sally works on the windows still

I went to look for Sally and found him up on the roof terrace again carrying on with sealing in the windows with bricks and cement. He was taping up the window frame to protect it when I got up there and smiling away as I had a brief chat with him. It's quite a fiddly job because of the shape of the windows and he was taking it carefully to make sure the job was done as best as possible.

Back to working on skimming the wall

The balcony men, now that the delivery had arrived, had spent a bit of time extending the scaffold to allow a longer working zone before the next move was required. I didn't get all that many pictures of them working but they made faster progress today and are probably about 2/3 of the way along this longer wall at the end of the day.

The pile of big logs in the sun

With the weather so much nicer now, after the rain over the weekend, and set to stay nice for the next week or so A and I went round and uncovered all the logs again. This was a good idea as there was some condensation on the inside of the tarpaulins. We have left these close to the wood piles so we can dash out and quickly re-cover them if need be but for now they will continue to dry out nicely.

Who needs a plug when you can do this

The rest of the morning passed in working, with a few short trips out to stretch legs, make brews and other little things. At lunch time A and I both went out to see what was going on, with the men on their lunch break, and I found once again that Bekir had done his thing with my wiring in the chicken house to allow the butchered extension lead to work. I really need to get a plug in there, though now it is a little late for this purpose.

Down to bedrock and nice and clean

The pond was looking really clean after all the sweeping and was clearly nearly ready for the cement to go in. We headed back inside and I had a lovely lunch of cheese and home grown tomatoes which was just lovely; our tomatoes are the nicest tomatoes there are. After this it was back to work for both of us as A was also rather busy today after a couple of slower days.

First application of concrete

The next time I popped out I found that the first of the concrete had been put down on the bottom of the pond. Gyuner was working away mixing and while he was waiting Bekir had investigated the coal store next door. He found that there was some structural problems with it but he's pretty sure he can quickly solve them so I said he should add that to the list. I would like to dig this out over winter and maybe next year we can breed rabbits in there, or it can become a house for Rambo who has been sadly kicked out of his old compound.

Clearing up fallen leaves

The rest of the day passed in the same way as the morning, with me working then waiting then walking around a bit then working again. About 4pm I got fed up and decided to go out and laze in the sun with my book however I only lay there for about 5 minutes before I decided to do something useful with the time instead. I got the rake and spent about half an hour or so clearing up the fallen leaves, twigs and stones which were all over the area we want to grow as a lawn. The other benefit for doing this is it will make our walnut harvest much easier with the cleaner ground. There is so much gathered up stuff though that my morning task has become clear; I need to move it to the compost.

Old Martenitsa around a branch

I collected together a fair few twigs and larger branches that were scattered over the ground here as well and on one of them, as I was gathering them into a single pile out of the way, I found one of the martenitsas that had been tied to a tree last year. It obviously hasn't done much for the harvest on this tree; so much for superstition.

Where the wall for the drive will be

I had seen the boss of the balcony men yesterday and talked through my requirements for the driveway and garage door and today he emailed me a quote however it was slightly higher than expected so I headed out with my tape at one point and confirmed the dimensions I needed. I emailed these back to him as questions and then later on Nikolai was asking me about the layout, having obviously spoken to the boss by phone. He got some string and marked it out and from what I can tell my calculations are correct so hopefully I'll get the reduced quote soon. We noticed at the end of the day that he had already made a start breaking the rocks to widen the drive as required which is just great; he also doesn't like standing around doing nothing. Also, while waiting for the other guy to be ready for him, he had pulled a rake over the grass underneath the plum tree and that is now much clearer also.

Lots of cement stuff going on

The pond area was a hive of activity as the men worked really hard to finish this task before home time. Both Gyuner and Sally had a wheelbarrow each and they were taking it in turns to mix up some cement and then deliver it to Bekir who was packing it down into the frames for the walls of the pond. This process was not massively fast and it took hours to finish it off. By the time it came to leaving time I went to stand downstairs so I wouldn't delay them when they were ready and they were still at it. One really amusing thing (I didn't have my camera, sadly) was the birds who were locked away in their house to prevent them escaping) were being very vocal indeed as their feeding time came and went and Kit/Kat were both jumping up onto the windowframes to look out and see what was going on. They are such intelligent inquisitive birds.

Playing in concrete; not good

Thelma and Louise are also intelligent and inquisitive but they are also very mucky puppies. They were having an absolute ball out there today chasing each other and fighting; Sally in particular was getting a lot of pleasure watching them race around. Unfortunately they were using the mixing point of the cement as a turning circle to chase around and Thelma got absolutely caked in the stuff. I called A and once we'd stopped laughing we washed it all off under the hose. She may not be a big fan of water but she didn't complain at all and just took the washing without any problems.

Being clean is BORING

Not two minutes later, however, she was covered in sand and mud again; this time we didn't wash it off and now she is clean once more.

As soon as the men were ready we jumped into Thomas and I took them home. Bekir went for another BBQ at a neighbouring village and by the time we got to the normal drop off point there were no other men around for Sally to talk to, unless they were inside which is a possibility. He wanted to stop there anyway so I waved goodbye and drove back as quick as I could. Dinner was the third and final meal made with the gorgeous sauce from the pork and was divine; we had to eat at our desks though as it got too late; I need to improve the lighting around the landing I think so we can go back to eating out there when it is dark.

And so now it is nearly time for me to have a shower and then get an early night; tomorrow promises to be another busy day with plenty going on.