Blog number 600

Well this milestone has come around without me really noticing so I'm not prepared to celebrate it with my usual stats nonsense. I missed number 500 as well, however, so I'll just grab a couple for this opening paragraph and then crack on with the normal update. Over these 600 posts I have now accumulated (checks) 207,607 views which is just out of this world. I have also now had 964 comments which is brilliant. I do love hearing from you all so don't be shy. Finally for this I find that 919 views have come to this blog from China so *waves at my Chinese audience* and of course everyone else.

Louise's wound healing over nicely

So last night we both slept much better, Louise was in her cage to stop her fighting with Thelma in the night, and also to prevent her from running around and maybe knocking her eye. I was woken up a couple of times first by myself needing the toilet and then by them and just before the alarm went off Rambo started barking and chasing something around the flat roof building. I have no idea what he had seen (even though the light did come on it wasn't bright enough to illuminate it) and so I headed back to bed but I wasn't able to drop back off. I had a little lay in, trying to sleep, then got up before A left to get my brew and check on Louise. It was amazing to see the improvement in her wound just over night. She looked so much better!

Final brush to clear

When A left I headed outside straight away and got the chainsaw out however I decided I wanted a quiet morning so in the end just spent the time breaking kindling off the bigger branches and stacking anything I couldn't do by hand to one side for later chainsawing. Before A got back I had filled and emptied two buckets of kindling which is now on the big pile in the garage. I forgot to get an "after" picture of the wood pile but it really is reducing now.

The framework for the steps

While I was up there and before any workmen arrived I decided to have a little stroll around and take some pictures. First of all here is where they left the steps up from the driveway at the end of the day yesterday. It also shows the extent of the drive (for my dad, mainly, who had asked) as it is an angle I don't often take from.

Detritus of puppy play

I then headed up onto the top bank to get some pictures of the lovely sky to the east where the sun was rising and breaking through the clouds sporadically. I found two items left over from puppy play up there, but no rat corpse so that has disappeared for good now. We've not caught any more rats in our traps either which is both a shame (as I want to get rid of them) and good (as they haven't been in, maybe?).

Lovely view across the valley

I ended up going all around the house to get a good picture of the sky and then, typically, have settled on one just taken from the first location up the top bank. It's such a lovely location where we are and it's always nice to glance up so often and see things like this. I need to have a play with the settings on my new phone as I'm not totally happy with how the landscapes are coming out at the moment.

Collecting together the stones

By this time the driveway workers had arrived. They spent a bit of time getting themselves changed and checking out the wooden framework from the other day and then set to work. The one of them was set to bringing wheelbarrows full of stones (dug out for the new drainage pipes) to be reused in the steps. These he piled up next to the steps so they were to hand for the cement mixing.

Superb progress on the grouting on the balcony

The tiler man was straight up onto the balcony to carry on with the grouting around the walls and by the time I headed out to get a picture of her progress from the day before he was a fair amount further round. It's great that he is using a matching grout for the tiles and actually I am really impressed that this level of thought has gone into it. This company may be a little pricey but the work they have done looks good to me.

When A got back with the men I managed to stop Louise from legging it after Thomas until he was past so there was no chance of accident. A came up to see what I was doing and while she was there I told her that Thelma was being very funny with her stick and really hanging on to it. I got the camera to get a video and she did it again. All day she has been holding her stick when you try and throw it and more than once I've had her dangling high in the air from it.

Loving the living room

I said yesterday that Bekir hadn't made as much progress as I expected on the tiling in the living room however I repented of that thought when I went through to bed. He had fitted all the tiles around the steps onto the balcony and also done some of the fiddly work near the stairs. We didn't have to shoot off to the vets or anything else today so he was straight back in there again to carry on.

Post injection and saline clean

The vet has given us six needles, pre-primed with antibiotics, with the instructions to inject Louise every day. We were slightly worried about this after her screaming performance when the vet injected her so I held her tight while a jabbed her. She did much better than both of us thought and just wriggled a lot and didn't start clawing at me or screaming. After this we washed the wound with saline solution and she ran off in a huff then came back with her tail wagging.

I really liked Sally's shirt today

Sally's work today revolved around the windows on the corridor. He had only started the framing yesterday so he had them all to do today. I had not seen the men when they arrived as I had been so busy with work so I made a point of popping out to say hello. He is always so smiley but today was better than normal as his reply to "how are you?" was "good" and not "up and down" like normal.

Thelma is totally devoted to playing

Thelma was still outside and still wanting her stick thrown for her. She is so focused it is a nightmare as you can see here where the driveway men are mixing concrete and she is right there hoping they will stop their work to play with her.Of course they always do.

Smiling while he works

Bekir was again making good progress this morning as I took another short break from my work to check out progress. It's looking quite likely that he'll finish this all tomorrow now which would be excellent. We have a number of little bitty tasks for him to do before Sally becomes free again to help with the new chimney. This all needs to be done before our bonfire night party so we can have the new petchka flaming away in the living room.

19 fruit trees in the back of Thomas

Mid morning I got a short break and Bekir was free to get away from his tiling so we headed down to market to try and get some fruit trees for our orchard, and then later get metal for Sally to make the garage door. We parked up and waked all around the market without finding the trees. Bekir even asked people who said he hadn't been at the market in another town the day before and they didn't know where he was. It was only as we paused so Bekir could get some grapes that I looked up and saw the stall, right by the road we had driven past to get to a parking spot. Typical. Anyway I have bought four apple trees, four pear trees, four plum trees, two apricot trees, two nectarine trees and two cherry trees. I was also given another pear tree for free which is great as we can plant that one in the middle of the existing chicken run. All of these saplings were just bundled together and chucked in the back of Thomas so I sincerely hope that Bekir knows how to identify them all. We ended up not going to get the metal in the end.

Cement going into the frames

Just before lunch I took another stroll around to see what was going on. I found that the driveway workers were making some excellent progress on the steps. All of a sudden it was quite clear that tomorrow would be their last day working here which is very exciting. This was confirmed by the boss of the company emailing me to say that they would, indeed, finish the next day. We're getting close to winter shut down.

Temporary storage for the trees

The trees were still in the back of Thomas so I asked Bekir if I should put them in water and he said no and came out to sort them out. This involved putting them into one of the holes that Gyuner has dug and filling it in around them. Poor Gyuner, he'll have to carefully dig them out again when all the holes are finished. I did try to suggest that the first two apples and pears go into that row so they don't have to be disturbed again but I'm presuming he knows what he is doing.

Butterfly on A's finger

A was with me while we were checking this out and spotted a little yellow butterfly on the grass. It was very groggy and didn't move much and she was even able to pick it up for a bit while it sat on her finger until eventually it flew off. I didn't see but A said she thought it had a damaged wing.

Look at how well that drainage is working

For the rest of the afternoon I was completely glued to my desk with barely any time to get out and enjoy the lovely warm afternoon. I did my best to get up a couple of times though as stretching one's legs is very important and sitting at a desk without moving is bad for you. I was going to see Gyuner most of the time as he was stuck out digging holes on his own. One time I looked round to see the balcony tiler spraying a hose around the balcony and was pleased to see how well the drainage was working.

I headed down again later on for a leg stretch and found Thelma in the bottom of the hole Gyuner was digging with the pneumatic drill waiting for him very patiently to stop so he would throw her ball for her. What a crazy little puppy; not the best place to be but fortunately Gyuner was very careful while she was there. Later on I finished working and went and got the chainsaw running and chopped up all the wood I had left from this morning's session which was really good to do.

Chilli made with my Green Tomato Pasta Sauce

And so it was time to take the men home. Bekir informed me the good news that the ducks are female and not male and then half way down the road I remembered I hadn't paid them AGAIN so I apologised and they laughed at me. I was in less of a daze today and drove much safer and when I got back I counted their money out and put it on their table in the attic for them to pick up first thing. A was making a chilli using my pasta sauce from last week and when it arrived it was really tasty indeed. That sauce is GOOD. I'm surprised it was so tasty.

So now I'm going to get these pictures in and then I've just suggested to A that we go sit on the balcony for a bit as it's quite mild and the forecast is for this to change from tomorrow. See you later.