Feels like spring

As we come to the end of January the weather has changed dramatically and suddenly there is a smell of spring in the air. It's been warm during the days and there are buds appearing on trees, while the "flags" have started to grow again as well down the front garden. It may be this that has caused us to kick into gear and get so much done but I'm not totally sure. Either way we've had a busy few days. I'm going to keep it chronological this time as it'll be quicker I think.

Thursday

Hazy across the valley first thing

There was a frost on the ground early in the morning

The kebab shop in town

Thursday began as usual with a brew and breakfast and then A heading out to go shopping in town while I worked away, and did a washing load which I got hung out before she got back as per usual. It was a frosty start to the day, not something we've seen often recently as there's been snow on the ground, but it cleared pretty quickly. By the time we went down into town to meet SandS for kebab at the little place in the centre it was really warm and we wished we had eaten outside but never mind; the kebab was super as usual. A managed to finally find some egg cups in a little lev shop so now the next time I make soft boiled eggs it'll be much easier to eat them.

A staining the balcony furniture

The two chairs looking lovely

Thelma helping me make the raised bed

The sinks will work OK together

I was stuck at my desk for most of the day but A broke with tradition and rather than rest all day she headed outside into the lovely warm sun with the balcony chairs and the wood stain and set about painting them all over in preparation for the summer. It took her all afternoon to do two chairs but they look brilliant now. I did get away from my desk briefly and took the time to assemble the next frames for the next raised bed; my plan was to get this fitted before the end of the week so we could make use of it. At the end of the work day we both went down into the kitchen to check out the sinks. The issue here was I had decided, rather arbitrarily, that we needed to buy another sink for my washing up area. The more I thought about it the more I felt that the two sinks we already have would actually work together and I wanted to see if this was correct. We offered them up in the space and it turns out that yes, we probably can use them together. I'll have my rinsing sink on the other side to my original plan but I can cope with that.

Salad? In winter?! Why not?

The lovely Pahlenka with everything

Two Shashlaks for main course

Neither of us were feeling the love for cooking that evening and we decided to take ourselves out for dinner to our favourite restaurant. When we got there it was obvious a large function was taking place as the tables in the large eating area were laid out all around the edges of the room. Sure enough later on we heard the singer doing a Turkish rendition of "Happy Birthday". It was a very enjoyable meal and everything we had was superb, including the salad that A was unusually in the mood for. We also both wanted Shashlak so we got different meats and did a bit of a swap. The puppies were very pleased to get their chunks of meat for their dinner when we got home.

Friday

Thick fog just clearing as I get home from town

Looking across our village as it clears

Evidence of A working, but no sign of her

Rambo and Thelma watching for A to return

I headed out before breakfast on Friday into town to do a few chores including banking and finishing the insurance for the trailer. This was a very easy job and I also got some good quality card with which to make a model railway building I had downloaded. It was very foggy when I left and remained so right up until I got back to the village when the sun just started burning through. A had been busy while I was out but was no where to be seen when I got back; it turns out she had been called over to the neighbours by the Little Lady for a coffee; both Rambo and Louise were stood waiting for her, but Thelma was too engrossed in her stick and didn't seem to notice she had gone.

Clean hay throughout the room, and it's all swept nicely too

Kat on the prowl

Beaker watching carefully

Ginger is very big now

Kit glares at A

All of them out and scratching around

When I left that morning A had been heading over to the chicken house to sweep it out and put fresh hay in and all that fun stuff to stop it stinking too badly. She got this done and finished up but forgot to get pictures for you to see what she'd done. When I got back she realised and grabbed my camera and went to get some shots before they wrecked the joint once more. While she was over there she got some brilliant pictures of the flock; what excellent characters these birds have. They are still providing us with regular eggs as well and are noisy as ever when they are hungry, which is almost all the time.

Sat on the porch, after breakfast with the puppies

I was really hungry when I got back so I set to making some scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast for both of us, though it was now closer to lunch. A was still out in the garden digging and she finished just as the eggs went on. It was so lovely that we decided to make use of the (now dry) re-stained balcony chairs and sit on the porch to eat our food. It was a good call and after we finished the puppies (all three of them) were around and we played with them for a bit before getting back to work.

Louise being taken for a ride by A

Digging out the trench ready for the raised bed

After a bit of faffing the first level was straight and true

An interested observer

We had plenty to be getting on with. A was back into the garden to do a final weeding and then take the barrow full of plants, grubs and slugs over to the chickens for a treat for them. Louise got in on the action by riding with the plants, though just after this shot she jumped off. I was on with my allotted task for the day which was to dig and situate the raised bed; I really wanted to have them totally done that day. At about 2pm my alarm went and it was time for the daily photograph which I've been getting better at doing on time; there was another type of local down on the path when I headed over there and I just about managed to stop her being scared off by Rambo who HATES cows.

Here I am using the circular saw for the first time

The third chair gets its new stain

Another raised bed is completed

With A's help I lifted each frame onto the previous one and then fixed it in place with braces. The wood I've used this time was the remainder of this batch from last year and was all the bad quality and warped lengths which made it quite a challenge to get straight and true. By sitting on it, shoving it and generally using brute force I got it all lined up good enough. Then it was time for the excitement of using a new tool for the first time; the circular saw. I measured twice and then started cutting. The first attempt wasn't all that great but I learned from the mistakes and by the time I'd cut the third and final sloping piece it was a simple job. A spotted me throughout and lent a helping hand where needed which made me calmer in case of accidents, and made it easier just in general. I was distracting her from finishing off her job of staining all the furniture by asking for this help and because of me she only got one more done on Friday. The raised bed was complete and we shoveled the soil back inside together and that was enough for me; I was not quite finished (we still needed the manure from the village pile) but I was way too tired by this point to push a wheelbarrow through the village four times fully laden.

Using the snips to harvest these dry weeds

A big bucket of weeds to dry

It ain't a bad life

Before we headed in for the night I had one more task on my mind and I dragged A along to help. As part of my model railway reading I have been getting concerned about how much I would be spending buying trees for the layout. There are loads of tips and hints for how to make your own and I noticed, next to the driveway, a load of weeds that look like they could be used to make trees. We went down there with a bucket and filled it completed without really even trying; these are now drying in the gardening room and I'll be having a good at making trees at some point over the summer. Even though it had been such a lovely day it was still quite cool in the evening and so the fire was lit and we had a really relaxing evening. We ate quite early and then watched the second part of The Hobbit before heading to bed (we'd watched the first on Thursday night).

Saturday

How I was bracing the floor....

And how I'm doing it now

Got the first two boards back down

More supplies required

We were both really tired when we went to bed and slept well but I had one of those strange sleeps where you don't actually feel sleepy as you're lying in bed and then when you wake up the next morning you feel exactly the same; strange. I did get the chance to think a bit while I was dropping off and I solved the problem of the joists underneath the flooring in Sassy's room. The boards were not quite as secure as I wanted with the old way of doing it and I decided to change tack and use much more wood than previously planned to make it more stable. I have since worked out that I'm going to use about five times as much timber doing it this way however it isn't that expensive and it'll make the floor last longer. I was straight up and working on this in the morning but A wasn't feeling great; her back had seized up a bit and she was resting it as is only wise. I worked away in Sassy's room with my diminishing supply of screws and wood and eventually ran out of screws so headed down to the shop, with the trailer, to stock up. It was great to be driving it while it is now legal. I bought three more packets of the narrow strips of wood, some paint stripper (explained by saying "So I paint, and then later, I clean" and the lady understood which was nice) and I bought her out of 60mm screws which amused her as well. The wood loaded into the trailer well and I drove back with no problems.

I'd seen the kmet on the way out of the village and talked to him about the fact that our water had once again completely gone off. He was surprised and made noises about calling ViK which then confused me as we've not been on ViK for ages and weren't expecting it to be back on until May or June at the earliest. As soon as I got back home from the shops I went to see how A was feeling (not great; she was back in bed with the heated blanket on) and then headed out to switch over to ViK and see if it worked and wouldn't you know it did. As I was out there I was called for coffee by the kmet to the Little Lady's and so I persuaded A to get up and we went over and drank coffee with some of her guests, sat outside in the sun and it was lovely. We'd left the puppies over on our land but Louise managed to squeeze out of the gate and came over to look for us. It's so nice to be welcomed over there but pretty soon her guests were leaving and so we headed back as well.

A gets started planting out lots of seeds

She's got a good routine going by this point

A few trays of seeds planted

Lettuce and some herbs in another raised bed bay

More seed trays ready and let's hope they grow

The end of the day in Sassy's room

A new fence is being built over there

I went up to Sassy's room to finish off the board I had been working on when I ran out of screws and then went down to do the manure for the raised bed. That was quite an effort, pushing the fully laden wheelbarrow through the mud that is now thick on the side path, but I got it done eventually with much puffing and panting. A was really pleased that she had got up out of bed and decided that, with how warm the sun was, she would be OK to do the chore she had planned for the day which was to plant lots of seeds into seed trays. This was one of the pressures for me to finish the raised bed as rather than build custom seed tray benches for the balcony (as I had suggested) we were going to just put all the trays under glass in our raised beds. She worked through the afternoon and got everything planted that we wanted at this stage. They have all been watered and now we wait and hope. It wasn't just us working away in the village; down in the low field Usmivka and the Little Lady were hard at it putting a new fence up. I was finding that with my new method of flooring I was moving a lot slower than expected and so by the time I called it a day I hadn't finished the floor as planned. This is a shame but as I said the end result will be better. The last board of the day was another happy occasion as I had to trim a 3cm at its widest point triangle off the wall edge for it to sit flush. The new circular saw made this extremely easy to do and I'm chuffed to bits with how well the cut board fits in place.

Beautiful afternoon with the sun on the hills

Good bye sun

It was a lovely evening and sunset but once again we lit the fire and had a super cosy living room. I cooked steak, hand cut deep fried chips and butter fried mushrooms for dinner and they were lovely, though I did over cook my steak very slightly. These were from Lidl and it's so unusual to find even slightly good steaks over here; I think we're going to try and get some more if we can to stock up. We finished off The Hobbit trilogy last night and I only shouted at it a few times which isn't bad. Unfortunately A's back was still pretty sore and so she had to go to the spare room to sleep because she was worried about disturbing me.

Sunday

A few more boards down this morning

She's back to baking again

And so we come to today. I woke up at the usual time and found that A was still asleep so I crept around as quietly as I could to try and avoid waking her. The puppies were not interested in this and kept having to be shushed but I did let her get quite a good lie in before she came through for a brew. I got loads of tidying done before she woke up though I put off sweeping as I didn't want to disturb her. Her back was really bad this morning and she could barely move which was quite a worry so I told her to rest and got on with my jobs. I did the humanure, cleaned out Sassy, swept the corridors and then got on with doing more flooring. A was able to get the hoover around in Room 13 which was a relief as it was quite dirty in there, and then she went to rest in the living room. While she was relaxing by the fire something happened and all of a sudden the really bad tightness in her back cleared and now she is pretty much fine again. How excellent. I can't say the same for my back after all the bending over to screw down the beams and boards but it's not as debilitating as hers was. Right now A is in Room 13 baking a banana cake for us and watching as our curry cooks for Sunday dinner; we were neither in the mood for a full roast today.

So there you have it. We've also spoken to Bekir a couple of times this week as he was lined up to come over tomorrow to check out the problem with the water which is now fixed so I was able to let him off that one. I've told him to ring us as soon as he is ready to start working here again so hopefully we'll hear from him in a month or so and we can get work started on the kitchen. I'm quite unreasonably excited about this.

I'll leave you with one thought; I got the quotes for the see through hatch above the stairs and they have all come back as about the same price as we reckon it'd cost to put a full sized swimming pool in. Decisions decisions....