Week ends

Hey there, me again. But you knew that because you clicked through to hear from me, huh. Hopefully the update today will be a shorter one for you (and me) after the epic of yesterday. There was one other thing that I wanted to put in the update yesterday and forgot. As we were driving back from the restaurant last night we stopped off by Usmivka's and got out and went and said hello to Teddy. He is growing so much and has put lots of weight on; he seems very happy indeed though he was sad to see us go I think. It's so good that he is healthy and happy.

Good morning Rambo

A had a few beers last night and I left her up and went to bed after finishing the blog. I wasn't in the mood for drinking so there was no point in staying up. When it was time to get up this morning I didn't disturb her and left her to lay in. The puppies were ready for their going out before the alarm went off but I made them wait so it wouldn't disturb her and then off we went. Rambo was dozing on the porch and said hello by licking my hand as I went past which was lovely. The chickens were keen to get out however the ducks didn't go anywhere near the pond.

Bridge porn for my dad

Sunshine glinting off the river

I didn't take my brew onto the balcony today but instead got the humanure buckets to be emptied and went and did them. It doesn't take long for these so I was able to get that done, wash up, and still leave early to give myself time to stop on the way to collecting the men and get some pictures. I pulled up just after turning off the new road near the bridge to get a picture of it for my dad, and also caught the newly risen sun glinting off the river. Lovely. From there it was an easy journey, with a brief pause to get bread from the shop, and we were racing back towards our work.

Mokava ready to be put on the roof of the wood store

I have just realised, looking through all the pictures I took, that I never took one of Sally today. He has been, however, in exactly the same position all day as he was for the past two; up the scaffold putting the plaster on the ceiling. He has finished the flat of the roof and has spent today putting plaster on the beams. It is looking excellent and every time I went through he had a kind word and a smile. Bekir and Gyuner were straight on with the wood shelter and first of all they brought out the mokava as the next stage of roofing.

Getting ready for tiles

Today is my non-working day but it didn't really happen like that and I spent a fair amount of time working away to try to unblock myself. The next time I went out to look at progress I found that the mokava was all laid, the bitumen roll was down and Bekir was getting set on putting the tiles in place, using them to measure out where the ribs needed to go for them to sit on. It was pretty exciting to see this progress.

Balcony tiles also looking good

The tiles on the balcony have also been progressing fast today and by lunch time or so the small rear section was nearly completed. Now they are down in a large area we can see that we made the correct choice. Our only concern with them was that the change in colour around the edge would be too overwhelming but actually it is quite subtle and looks great.

It doesn't look comfortable, but she was fast asleep

We had arranged to meet Lyubo in town today to go to get A a litchna card. We headed down in good time and he was ready and waiting even though we were early. It was a very quick day in the end as we didn't have everything (I thought the letter from the bank should have been paid for) and we needed some things translating. He helped us out with a translation and then we agreed to meet up next Wednesday to finish it off. From there it was a bank trip where we ordered the correct form, past a gardening stall on the market where we got two lovely fern plants and then we went and sat on a bench in the park enjoying the weather, watching the world go by, and waiting for it to be time to collect our translation. This was ready when we went into the shop and so we headed home.We got back just before lunchtime which was good and relaxed before eating.

Tiles going on

A's task today was to do the shopping and so after dinner she shot off in Thomas. The men had had their hour break and were back to it, Sally up his scaffold as I say and Bekir and Gyuner on with the tiles. They had brought down enough tiles from the stacks in the roofspace earlier in the day and now they were carefully fitting them together. I watched them for a bit then went to get on with the one task I had set myself for today.

Nearly all chopped down

This was chopping down the dead walnut tree. I checked out the chainsaw, put a bit more oil in it (I am trying to make sure my habit is to always check out its status before using it) and headed down. It has been dead for a while and I do want to try and get some wood out of it which I can use to make ornaments or furnishings of some sort however my worry was it would be quite rotten. I did not end up getting the whole tree down as the final branch is over the garden fence and I needed the ladder (which Bekir was actively using) to trim it down. I was quite pleased with the rest of the job though and I managed to get the big branch on the right to fall between the concrete pole and another tree quite accurately. I'm learning.

Ants nest right in the middle of the branch

A lot of the wood was quite good however one branch in particular was completely riddled with ants. They came boiling out of a hole in the middle of it as soon as I cut and there were thousands of them! A few even got onto me and bit me which was irritating. As I say most of the wood looked OK which is great; maybe I can make some drinks coasters or something.

It's the right height for her; not for me though

I jogged round to let A in through the vehicle gate when she got back and then helped her unload. I also reminded Bekir to talk to the wnidow people as I wanted that double door ideally fitted next week before our guest. We headed inside and I went back to work while A had a doze and then I went for my own sleep but in the end just lay in bed reading which now I am regretting. When I woke up I went to see what was going on outside and found that the wood shelter was near enough completed. The tasks left to be done were to put the metal on the join between the wall and the roof to prevent leaks down the wall and to build the end walls on the shelter.

Fighting for a stick this time

While we were sat out there watching we had visitors in the form of Usmivka and the Little Lady, and another chap who I think is one of their guests. We did the showing tour and they were all impressed. The progress which has been made on the driveway today is also good, though I didn't get any pictures. You'll get to see that tomorrow as I'm going to be extracting the good rocks from the spoil pile first thing. There are LOTS of them now. The puppies were playing with sticks while we were there and I got lots more pictures, though this is the best. I also did a bit of a glass pick while I was out there, assisted by one of the tilers, and Bekir and Gyuner got a good way towards finishing the metalwork.

Are they really ducks? They don't want to swim!

The ducks STILL haven't been in the pond, I tried to encourage them to go in and they didn't. A threw bread in there and they didn't. Every time I drive past I ask them to go in and still they won't! Has anyone got any advice for encouraging ducks to get into a pond which we had built at great expense!?

And so it was home time, another one with a nice little bit of chat between all of us as we went, and then back for dinner which was a super nice paella. I did the watering round this evening which was great and now I'm sat here with my brew sweating away as it is still up towards 30 degrees. Maybe the weather will change soon but we're still basically in summer here.