Tidying up

An early and short update for you today as later on our guest arrives and I'm not going to do an update this evening while he is here. I'll try and get one done tomorrow though before we're away for the weekend and all updating will cease until at the very earliest Sunday and maybe not until Monday.

I'll start with a video taken last night in bed (no, not a naughty one) of me playing with the puppies with their chew toy. They are so strong it is actually quite tiring to keep up with them. Thelma in particular is insatiable in her desire to play and the only way to shut her up is to just take her toy off of her. Not long after this A fell asleep and I read until I finished my book and then turned the light out. I don't think either of us slept very well last night; I woke with a really sore neck well before it was time to get up and then couldn't get back to sleep at all. When A got up to take the puppies I got out of bed as well and got the brews in.

Sun rising behind the ridge

Ghostly sunrise

I was up early as I had a list in my head of things to achieve first thing before I started work. To begin with I cleared out a load of the junk from our bedroom and got it ready to hoover and move ourselves back in there. I was very early at this and when I took the rug outside to beat it I was in perfect time to catch this stunning sunrise; I think this may be my new favourite ever. I rushed in to get the zoom lens onto A's camera and fortunately it was still amazing then. A even had time to get out onto the balcony (she was working from very early as well) to see. I couldn't chose between these two pictures so you got both.

Nikolai drilling the driveway

We weren't sure if the workmen would come in today however they did which was good; always nice to be making progress there. It did mean that the length of carpet had to be put down again in the bedroom for them walking through. Hopefully next Monday the window people will be out to fit the double doors in the living room and then we can seal our bedroom again; it was VERY dirty indeed when I swept and hoovered it out. We also had to clean and tidy the guest room which we have been staying in and over the day, between working, we have done pretty much everything. The place is far from clean but it is at least ready. I had a text to say my mate had got to the bus station OK and bought his ticket so it's all systems go. Very exciting indeed.

Thelma and her kill

The girls have been their usual cute selves today, playing with the workmen, chasing us around, Thelma managed to go down the spiral staircase on her own for the first time (leaving Louise behind who was NOT best pleased and barked to say "COME BACK!") and generally getting into trouble. At one point I was on the balcony and saw Thelma in amongst the rocks digging and chasing something. I headed down to see what it was and found that she had found and killed a cockroach type thing.

Walnuts and husks drying

Lunchtime was baked beans on bread (I buttered the bread to make sandwiches before realising I wanted baked beans so no toast for me today) and also a celebration as I finished separating all the walnuts from their husks. These are now spread out in the roof next to the windows to the roof terrace where hopefully they will dry satisfactorily. I will give them a turn before we go away for the weekend. We have quite a few as you can see, but we haven't even harvested half that are on our trees. I'm not sure I'm going to harvest any more either. Not this year.

I helped A to take the curtains down in the guest room while I was tidying it and now they are rehung correctly. It is lovely having such tall ceilings and I love the spaciousness they give to the place but it is a pain to have to climb up that high to hang curtains. The curtain lady was most shocked when we specified the dimension for our living room curtains; it took some persuading before she was willing to make them. We did realise that when we ordered them we forgot about the double doors so we'll have to go back to the shop and order yet more huge curtains soon.

Balcony coming on, and so is the driveway

I've told Nikolai that it'd be better for them to have tomorrow off so we don't have workmen around and we can be free to do whatever. The two of them today have made some pretty amazing progress to be fair and if they were working tomorrow they may even have finished their tasks. We did have to stop them feeding the puppies at lunch (Thelma was actually sat on Nikolai's lap apparently eating BBQ meat!) but the thing is they love dogs and love treating them which is far better than if they hated them and were nasty.

So yeah, an early update finished mid afternoon so maybe a longer one tomorrow evening but we'll see; I'm still struggling to get used to not using my own camera which is purely psychological as hers is just as good as mine and works exactly the same. I'm going to have to order myself a new one though.