A change of plan

It has been a really stressful couple of days for both of us, for various reasons, and there is only one day left until I'm on the bus and on my way back to the UK. Ideally this last three days would have been less exciting but that is how life is sometimes. I've just spent the day rebuilding my entire computer from a blank slate and am installing photoshop as I type this introduction. It's very nearly time to get the men back to their houses now though so I'll get back in time, hopefully, to type up this update.

Sunday night

So quickly back to the end of Sunday when I left you after finishing the update.

Cutting up the second cauliflower

Cauliflower cheese ready for serving up

Lamb roast with trimmings

Lamb bone number one

Lamb bone number two

The sun goes down past black clouds

We'd been out in the garden doing some harvesting that day, I used my sickle to cut out the second cauliflower which we grew over winter. It was again just on the edge of over ripe but A processed it and made another absolutely lovely cauliflower cheese. We ate while listening to classical music and then spent a relaxing evening reading and watching as the puppies destroyed the two bones that we gave them. It was a cloudy evening but cleared up after the sun went down and by the time we got to bed the stars were out.

Monday

I had a bad nights sleep on Monday. I just didn't settle and I was laying there thinking that maybe I had eaten too much lamb (Friday BBQ and Sunday roast) and my stomach just isn't used to red meat any more. It felt a bit like indigestion but my stomach didn't hurt, it was just active. When the alarm went off I was left in bed by A and got a little more of a rest in.

A really foggy start to the day

The first garlic pulled, a proud face

Hung up to dry in the entrance hall

Bekir tidying up before starting to lay tiles

An awkward position for plastering

I didn't stay in bed all that long after she had gone and was up and about by the time A got back with the men. It was a really misty start to the day and my plans of doing the humanure just fell apart at the point where I wasn't feeling well and it was miserable and damp. I was working while she was out and continued until I basically collapsed and went to bed where I failed to sleep but still rested some. A has shifted her hours and now has Monday's off which meant she was able to spend quite a lot of time outside in the garden. The first thing that she achieved was pulling up the winter garlic and stringing it up to dry just in the entrance hall. Bekir and Sally were in the kitchen getting stuck in to the tasks to get the place ready for Wednesday when the kitchen guy was due. We were short a few items so A took Bekir shopping and also picked up our ekont which included the kitchen tap and some pictures I had ordered.

Checking out how square the square is... not very...

He starts laying them

Very much activity in the kitchen

Nearly half done already

Sally goes onto his second coat

It wasn't a long trip out and when they got back Bekir got stuck in with laying the dark tiles on the platform. We have a hard target of getting at least this platform completed by Wednesday morning so the kitchen can be fitted on that day. He was flying and by early afternoon it was really starting to take shape. Talking of shapes the observant of you will notice that the tiles in the first picture are not square to the edge of the platform. It turns out that this was built very slightly skewed so Bekir has overlapped the edge where needed and will fill in with concrete before he comes to do the edges with tiles. Sally was working like a machine around the walls doing the plastering and making such a huge difference to the whole thing.

More seeds in hope of some sunshine sometime soon

Distant clouds hug the hills

Sun lighting up the clouds

A stunning end to a bit of a mixed day

A had been busy outside and potted seedlings into bigger pots, transplanted some random plants that had appeared in the wrong place (mostly lots of peas that suddenly appeared all over the place) and cleaned out a couple of the raised beds to put seeds in. She then headed out to do a few more chores and I was washing up when I spotted the skype number ringing just as she got back. It was the mechanic for her car and it was at this point the day changed. To cut a long story short I am now not going to be using her car while I'm on my break and I had to rely on my mother to dig us out of a hole (the alternative was buying a very sexy Mercedes CLK 320 and driving it over from here; I liked this idea of course but it was massively impractical). Of course, my mother being the person she is, she HAS helped us and so my break can go on unaffected other than having to fly back afterwards and not drive. This stress was quite unexpected and effected both of us rather more than either of us realised yesterday. Dinner was a lovely sweet and sour "thrown together" pork dish and the evening was brightened by a glorious sunset which I captured from the roof terrace.

Tuesday

It was another mixed night sleep for me. A slept well, thankfully, but again I could not get back to sleep after the early morning Louise alarm call. I was still feeling quite rough though when I got up to make us a brew, early as I couldn't get back to sleep, I felt a bit better and got stuck in to work.

Another really foggy start

Back for a final go

It was another misty start and filthy but I had chores that could no longer be put off. I cleaned out Sassy and took that, the kitchen collection box and the two full humanre buckets down and then spent all the time A was away getting the next external collection point ready, and covering over the one we've just finished to leave it for a bit. I had just sat down when she got back with the men. While I was in the garden the digger man arrived and as I was eating my toast for breakfast he got started with filling in the trench and clearing up all the rubbish. Again. It was now that today's horror happened. I was rebuilding my computer and stuck watching a progress bar so I grabbed the camera to get a video of the digger guy at work and as I walked along the corridor to the kitchen I was surprised to see one of the sinks was there. I was even more surprised to walk into the kitchen and find the kitchen fitter unloading all the brand new units and stacking them up inside. I had specifically told the guy that he could NOT come and store them here and should bring them on Wednesday morning but when I expressed surprise his attitude really rubbed me up the wrong way and I am ashamed to say I shouted at him. Quite a lot. He picked everything up, put it back in his truck, and drove off. The kicker to this story is just now when I took the men home I found that he had driven the truck off the land, just round the corner and left it parked under the trees there. At least, I suppose, we know that he will be back tomorrow to fit it.

All cleaned up and smoothed over. Mainly.

Bekir near the end of his tiling task

Sally working around the stairs again

With all of that going on, and the fall out of me still being angry and then feeling bad, I never did get a video of the digger guy and he was even gone before I could say thankyou. He'd done a cracking job, though, and now we just need to put stones down everywhere again to prevent it from becoming a quagmire in rain. Inside, other than ducking from my rage-shouts, Bekir and Sally were getting on really well. Bekir was really close to finishing all the tiling and had managed to do all of the top of the platform with the tiles we had bought. It turns out we had ordered ONLY JUST enough for this job. Sally as up the top of the spiral staircase plastering around the edge of the hole and finishing all of that off as well. At lunch time I hung the new pictures in the lounge and bedroom and they look awesome; we've got our Christmas Picture up on the lounge and a photograph I took of a stunning blue sky with many types of clouds that is above the door in the bedroom.

A resting in the sun with Louise

Me and a smiling Louise

Thelma grinning away

A lovely blue flower has appeared

And lots of lovely white flowers also

My reinstall wasn't going very quickly, and A was also feeling a bit rubbish, so she took herself onto the balcony and I joined her for a little bit with a pint of water to enjoy the sunshine and wait for the next progress bar to move. It was lovely out there and the puppies were both loving it also, with huge grins as they basked in the sun. A bit later on it was time again for the daily photograph and while I was there I noticed that a couple of the seeds that A had sown all those months ago in the new flowerbed on the lawn have suddenly appeared. There are loads of the white ones, but only one of the blue. Still, it looks very lovely indeed.

Sally finally nears the end of his epic plastering task

Bekir cutting one of the very hard tiles

Safety first as he trims the edge

And how it looked about half an hour ago

I finally managed to get my computer reinstalled with Windows but then it took me ages to recover all my drivers and put software on. I still am not completely ready for working on it but I'm close. Tomorrow, though, is my last day before my holiday. It has been quite a rush in the kitchen however against the odds we have managed to get it all done. All the plastering in that room is completed, not even just the walls near the kitchen area but every part. Bekir has just got half an hour or so of grouting to do and he has done the entire platform. We don't know, of course, exactly when this kitchen fitter is going to show up tomorrow but by the end of the day I really hope I can show you a picture or two of the completed job. If I get time I may do a quick update tomorrow before I leave but otherwise I'm handing over to the lovely A to do this while I'm on holiday.

Dinner was a beautiful omelette, a dinner choice forced on us by the fact we had 36 eggs stacked up waiting to be eaten. The digger boss came over and the invoice he gave me was very acceptable which makes a nice change. He seems like a nice guy so I'll be using him again, when I get round to doing the basketball court I think. Now I'm shattered so I'm going to go and relax with A and then head to bed. I really hope I haven't got a cold or flu; that really isn't what I need right now.