No power or water

I'm starting this before taking the men home as we're going to be heading out for dinner this evening and I want to get this done and out the way as much as I can now. So onwards.

Foggy tree

Pre dawn glow over the valley

Last night we were in bed relatively early again though this time it was me who was very tired. I fell asleep pretty much straight away and slept quite well. I did have to take the puppies out in the night and it was a gloriously clear night with a super bright moon once again. When the alarm went off A got up and I followed her almost straight away to get a brew on and grab the camera as the sun was rising and I wanted to get pictures. The fog was not up around us but was still down in the valley and it was just another beautiful morning as you can see.

Thomas with the first frost of the year

There is the sun, again

It had been colder than I realised last night and Thomas was covered in a layer of frost. The sun popped up as I was watching and so a picture was required. This is the first sunrise I've watched for ages. It was lovely. I headed down to scrape Thomas and then decided to start on the wood however I found it was frozen and too slippy to work with so I just spread it out a bit to catch the sun and dry out during the day so I could process it later on.

Thelma is less pleased than she looks

Louise looks like a grumpy super dog

I was back inside before A left to get the men and the puppies were so cold, shivering by the fire, that she put their coats on them. They were not impressed once more but soon enough were running around after their toys and happy again. Poor little mites are going to struggle when the weather really closes in.

Just a little bit of soot

Once A had left I took a quick trip around to see what the men had achieved at the end of the day yesterday. Here is the result of cleaning the chimney which Bekir is now rebuilding. On the left is the tool room and they have literally taken the wall apart to clean it. On the right is the kitchen and this will need cleaning up before they leave. Lots of soot and it had been years since it was done.

Security on the garage door

As mentioned yesterday Sally made lots of progress on the garage doors and had nearly completed the catch and security for it. We didn't open these this morning but left them for when he got in. This will be so good to get completed and he looks on track to finish them this week or early next.

Puppies staying warm

As I couldn't do the kindling I found other tasks to do this morning. There was some humanure from the kitchen to do which was stinking the place out and then I saw that we had quite a lot of rubbish collecting up to be burned so I headed out onto the top bank and cleared it all, including doing a rubbish pick around the place. The puppies were really funny as at first the came to the back door then turned round and went back inside but eventually they joined me and stood right near the barrel where it was warm.

Beautiful morning, if a big cold

One of many mushrooms on the top bank

I was up there until A got back with the men at which point I was just wandering around to collect wood and kindling for Room 13. It was such a beautiful morning though there was a raft of cloud threatening to cover over the sun and cool it down fast. Up on the top bank there are quite a lot of mushrooms at the moment as well, it having been so wet last week, and I'm not sure if these are edible or not. I meant to ask Bekir today but forgot. Maybe tomorrow.

Louise is nearly fully recovered

Louise's wound has now almost totally healed. She has the tiniest of red marks there where she once again scratched the scab off completely however it looks like it is going to not even have a scar. Her hair is also growing back well but the best and most noticeable thing is how bright her eyes are and how they are watering less than ever before. It's great to have her healthy again.

First load of soil delivered

And so I settled to work and so did A and then suddenly, at exactly 9am local time, the power went off. Now it does do this sometimes and normally only stops off for about an hour so we both kept working on battery power and she managed to complete two files before the battery died on her laptop. The annoying thing was that this power outage continued until 4.30pm and so the files she typed had to be done by someone else. So frustrating! I decided after a while and reaching a block that I would head down to the local shop to pick up the bits for making a short extension cable into the bathroom. As I was driving out the front gate Bekir yelled at me from the roof and here was our soil being delivered. I had to hold the cable up with a big stick as he drove in the front gate which was fun and then I ran up and got pictures. as he unloaded it. This was only half of what we had ordered and as he left I followed him down the hill to the shop.

Taking down the telephone cable to the farm

I left Bekir removing the cable (it is no longer in use which is good as it means the box on the back of the house can also be removed soon) and when I got back from the shop with everything I needed he was on top of the green building getting the last of it down. The power was (obviously) still off when I got back and I spent the next hour wiring the extension cable together. This took so long partially because the cable I had bought was thick and it was a struggle to fit it together and partially because the Little Lady came over with some bayram food and I spent some time sat on the balcony with her chatting and with the men.

The chimney pokes through the roof

By around lunch time Bekir had got the new chimney up above the roof line and was cracking on fast. It was a frustrating day for them as well, with no power, as Sally had prepared himself to do the next steps on the garage door and this is impossible without power (he was welding and grinding) and obviously Gyuner was struggling without the pneumatic drill but Bekir was unaffected.

A tidying up our pantry

Once the power to her laptop finally died A and left the warmth of Room 13 and started tidying the next shelves out in the corridor. These will continue to have our larder on them over winter however they had become quite cluttered with kitchen stuff we'll not use until the new kitchen is in place, badly organised jars of preserves from over the years, and general rubbish. Over the day she cleared all the shelves bar the bookshelves and it has made such a massive difference.

Whisky collection

I distracted A for a while to help me start clearing out the tool room. We took the long wood poles that were in there and first of all shifted them outside through the window then got them stored away in the green building, along with a few other pieces of wooden beam that were laying around the land. After this was done I started to bring up the whisky boxes to the top corridor and it's only when I'm moving them like this that I realise quite how much I have. This weekend I'll get all the open bottles into the living room and then it's a case of finding the shelves on which the display bottles can go.

Storage unit finally built

With this done it was lunch time and I had a small sandwich and that is all. After a little bit of time relaxing I headed on to my next task which was, rather than clearing the tool room, to tidy the gardening room. It was such a mess in there that it needed some shelving just to make a start at tidying. It took me at least an hour of cursing and struggling to put this together as it kept falling back  to pieces as you moved to the next step however I have now got a load of ideas on how to build it more efficiently next time.

Really uncomfortably messy room

Much tidier now

So with the shelving unit built I got Gyuner help to lift it inside and then started tidying. It didn't take long but after I was done the change was amazing. I still have to tidy through the garage stuff that is stacked in there, and we have a LOT of kindling bundles to go through as well, but the gardening kit is all straightened away now nicely.

Sally bricking the gaps up

As I mentioned, with the lack of electricity, the other two have had a tougher day today. Sally has been picking up bits and pieces of work around the place that he has obviously had his eye on to do. First of all he has put the final touches on the cement around the balcony doors from the living room and then he started to finish the surround to the kitchen door onto the patio. He's brilliant.

Hammering  a chisel into the rock to break it

Bekir getting another delivery of cement

Gyuner was having an even more difficult day. Bless him, though, he just cracked on and did everything he could. At first he dug the soil away for the hole in the existing chicken house and then, when he hit rock, he went and used the pickaxe and widened some of the other holes that needed attention. When I was working on the shelving unit he had a chisel and a hammer and was painstakingly chipping the stone from the bottom of one of the first holes he had dug. Later on he also dug the the hole in the chicken yard out with the pickaxe until it was too deep to swing it. I was very impressed with him today and he also seems to have cheered up. He was working with Bekir again as well, mixing cement and shoveling it into a bucket for Bekir to haul onto the roof. I think this made quite a big difference to his mood.

Finally power is back

I woke A up from her afternoon snooze once I had completed tidying the gardening room (well I say that but really Louise woke her but jumping on her face and licking her) and then headed outside to work through some kindling. The power was still not on and I'd given up on doing any paid work today. When I was about half way through my targeted wood A came out to say the power was back on and immediately Sally plugged his power tools in and got to work on the garage door. Gyuner finished up what HE was doing and then took the pneumatic drill into the chicken house and cracked on with that hole. The ViK water, which had gone off about an hour after the electric, was not back the last time I checked; great.

New dining area; very nice

I came in for the last bit of the working day to start on this update as the power was back and while I was typing (about six or seven paragraphs in) Bekir called through to say that they were ready to leave. It was another quiet journey back however there was a laugh as we drove past a police car sat in the dark trying to catch people out so maybe the thaw in relations really is occurring. When I got home I found A had used the heater in the bathroom and it had made quite a difference; it was lovely to shower in a warm room. Because of the lack of power we'd decided very early that we would eat out this evening so once we were dressed and ready I drove us to our favourite restaurant. It was absolutely packed full with not a table spare in the usual place we eat however we went through to the back and found a whole other seating area that was really lovely and comfortable.

Illuminating the clouds

Bright moon

I'd bore you with pictures of the food (I did take them) but I'm not going to. It was very tasty indeed; we ordered a plate of olives which were superb. The only problem with sitting back where we did was to not get to enjoy the singer with the Improbably High Heels but we were greeted by the keyboard player and she said hello when she came back past so that was good. When we left A drove us home as I'd had a few beers and I did my best to get a good picture of the moon through the clouds but none of them came out right so you'll have to make do with these two pictures and combine them in your head.

So we got back, the puppies (all of them, including Rambo) were pleased to see us and now it's nearly time to go to bed and sleep. We've a busy day planned tomorrow in preparation for a busy weekend so sleep is needed before then.