A mixed weekend

Himself always says that Sunday's blog is the more difficult one because it combines three days and not just two. He may actually be right about this, but let's not make too big a deal of that fact. I do miss him though.

Anyway, it is Sunday evening and I am casting my mind back to Friday morning as best I can. It started in the same way they all do Monday to Friday and I got up, had coffee and went to get the men. The mornings have been very foggy until the sun breaks through and when I let the puppies out after collecting the men it was still quite damp. I didn't realise just how damp it was until Louise came bounding through the door of Room 13 looking like a drowned rat! Silly puppy.

A damp Louise

Friday:  After having rushed around all week and with his Lordship swanning off on his holidays and getting me up at 4am (only joking love), I was feeling the effects and was pretty much exhausted. Friday was a true day of rest for me. I took myself off to bed not only once in the late morning, but again in the afternoon. I was extremely lazy, but I felt a whole lot better for it, which is all that matters. Whilst I was sleeping, Bekir and Sally were getting on in the kitchen and making yet more progress.  Sally was re-doing the ceiling in the nook and applying a second coat to the walls; Bekir was fitting our snazzy lights!

Redoing the nook plastering

Bekir multitasking

I did achieve something on Friday, however small and in the end, pretty useless. We have had problems with the swallows and sparrows nesting and feeding inside the chicken house. I thought it was worth a try to put up a fly screen, attached with velcro, to the outer door and see if that would keep them out. It proved to be a pointless task about two hours later when I went to check in on it and found about five swallows frantically trying to get out. I chased them out and gave it another go. This proved just as useless as when I went to lock the chickens away (it was dark), they were all huddled around in a bunch by the corner of the enclosure. They were refusing to go inside because THEY were afraid of the net.  Anyway, the hassle I had trying to get them all inside and having to actually catch and carry Ginger in, really was not worth it. The netting is down. I give up.

Swallow-proofing

 Here is the final look of the lights at the end of the day. Bekir had called me down to show me that they were working on a triple switch, one for each of the zones and a separate switch for the large Old School globes that we are re-purposing. Doesn't it look great?

Funky lights

 Saturday:  I woke feeling much more refreshed than I expected on Saturday and had, in my head, a list of things that I wanted to make a start on. And that is exactly what I did.  First on the list was the sheets from our bed, mainly because I wanted to spring clean the room, so a good opportunity. It blew a gale all day though, so I had to keep checking it wasn't halfway down the mountain.

A bright start to Saturday

We had taken the curtains down in the living room a while ago, but due to the builder doing the insulation on the balcony, we had to wait to take the bedroom ones down. He had done this a week or so ago and neither of us had managed to put them away. Tick. Job now done.

Curtains go away

The puppies were a little manic on Saturday. I think this had something to do with them realising He wasn't around. They were in and out and in and out all morning. I am unable to leave the doors open as the swallows continually come in to build nests, so eventually I found a bent wooden door stop we had used for another door and boom....no more running up and down the stairs to let them in. Adorable they may be, but noisy when they want to come inside!

Energy saver

Next on the to-do list was to finish off the final shelf for the living room. I had forgotten that the bottom needed two coats and so set to it. These are proving very useful in the living room as we are placing the seedlings by the window and because there is so much sunshine coming through in the early part of the day, they are thriving in there and get a real boost before they get transferred to the garden. These simple little things will hopefully set us in good stead for future growing.

First coat, final side

Yesterday, in between my tasks I kept going into the kitchen for a look and stood staring at it. This may seem odd to most of you, but when you have spent over a year cooking in your office, perhaps you have a greater appreciation of it. I just love it.

Kitchen happiness

I had spent a lot of time in our bedroom tidying and hoovering and generally moving things around. It was a bit of a mess really and it was starting to irritate me. Ideally I would have liked to remove the petchka, but that would have made more of a mess than I started with, so I left it in place.

Spotless

Saturday evening was spent on the sofa with a couple of glasses of wine and a film. The girls were snuggled up with me and it ended up being quite a late one, for me, but a very relaxing one after a busy day.

Sunday:  After the beautifully clear start yesterday, today brought more fog. Unlike Himself, I don't really function in the mornings until after my coffee so I did not get an early picture of that, but did manage to catch it just as it was disappearing. 

Morning mist

 After the troubles of last year with Rambo and the ticks, I am particularly anxious about the pups getting bitten, so first thing I sprayed them with the spray. This is Thelma post-spray, looking far from happy.  The plus side to this is that they smell lovely until it dries. I think she would rather smell like poo.

Not a happy puppy

With Himself in the UK, I have opportunity to do things around here without disrupting him too much. When I walked into Room 13 this morning, I instantly decided that I would simply have to clean my desk; I could barely see the actual desk. His was exactly the same. So now we can see that they both are wood and not made of dust or paperwork! I wonder how long this will last? We are two messy pups sometimes.

Sunday is our day for cleaning anyway and I carried out the normal routine; laying the rugs this week after the corridor was hoovered. I did not take on the living room however. That will perhaps be a job for tomorrow. It is all much more time consuming when there is only one of us here.

Desk tidy

Wooden desk

I scrubbed the bathroom from top to bottom (it wasn't too bad actually as there are no boys here now).

Easy cleaning

Today has been absolutely lovely weather-wise. I was sitting on the balcony and decided that I would go and get my diesel in town and then come back and take all of the dogs out for a walk. The weather heard my thoughts and when I got back it was blowing another gale and the clouds started to draw in. It looked like we were set for another storm. I forgot the walk and went to do the watering round instead.

Rambo was having his own rest day today and sat out of the sun (it was warming up at 28 degrees when I went for diesel).

Incoming

Day off

This is hateful. A brand new paint job and these swallows are making a right mess of it already. Every day, all day, I knock down what they have stuck up there and every morning I come down and there is more. I wonder who will win this battle in the end?

Ongoing battle

I have just eaten my chicken and chips and fed the puppies. It is time for me to go and relax before the working week begins once more. I am going to be very lazy with this last section and just show you some photographs from the garden of the things we are growing and how they are coming along. I have shown you the spuds and corn earlier in the week, so here is the rest of it, so far.

Garden:

Poppies and bees

New growth

Sprouting sunflowers

Coriander

Peppers

Grapevine

Courgettes

Brassicas

Beetroot

There are tomato plants out there, spuds, sweetcorn, lettuce and a few carrots which may take. In the brassica bed there are cabbage, cauliflower, swede and broccoli. Along the fence behind the broccoli are peas.  There are also a few melons. I think if we manage to harvest this lot, we will be doing very well indeed. With every year, we will learn more and more.

That's it from me. It looks like a storm is coming in from the west now, so I will hit publish before it starts. 

A x