Back to work

Friday night and another productive couple of days to write about. Hopefully, however, it won't be quite as long an update as the last one. I'm tired (I've had a touch of a cold today and haven't been on top of myself) and want to wrap this up quickly.

Foggy start to the morning

Red sky in the morning across the valley

Thelma settled in for another snooze

Louise loves the beanbag

View from the Cheren Put - a raft of cloud below

One tiny hut on an island above the fog

Thursday morning dawned very clear and lovely and I went onto the balcony to get some shots of the fog in the valley, though we were well above it. I've missed sitting in the lounge over winter and so brought the brews upstairs, after doing the washing up, and sat on the sofa while A had a lie in and when she got up her coffee was waiting, with me. The puppies had both gone back to bed after their morning toilet run and when A got up they also joined me on the sofa and Thelma curled back up to sleep on my lap. Louise spotted the beanbag and ran straight to it and made herself comfortable. Soon enough it was time to head out to get the men and the fog in the valley was thick and constant the entire way. I stopped at the top of their cheren put to get some pictures including a panoramic with my phone.

This wall needs all the paint taking off

Plastering over the patched up walls

Cement footings going off

Pipes for more drainage

When we got back I went straight into Sassy's Room and continued scraping the paint off the walls. It is a slow and horrible process but if I'm doing it I am speeding up the whole project so it's worth while. Byulhan (I've been mis-spelling his name all along!) was in the lab plastering up the small areas that had needed it in there while Sally was in the coal shed carrying on with the work on the beams. The footings were the focus here and the cement he'd poured the night before was well on its way to going off; two more to be done. After grabbing breakfast I headed down with Bekir to get some more items, including more drainage pipes, for his work and then when I got back I carried on with my paint work however I'd worked out a better method, having watched the workmen at this task, and was using the hammer/axe tool to chip it off. Unfortunately the wall I was working on coincided with Room 13 and the sound was driving A nuts so after she videoed me I changed walls and that was less of a problem for her. It was still horrible for me, though, and my head was still vibrating when I went to bed last night!

More cement goes down, sealing this floor

The plastering is nearly complete in the Men's Room

Bekir welds once again

Princess Smelly Neck

Another hole created for the footings

Measuring for the central column

With the plastering completed Byulhan began mixing and laying down the remaining areas of floor in the lab that needed doing. Around this time we had an unexpected visit from a Russian couple who heard about us through the builder's merchant and popped up to say hello. Sadly everything was a rush and we couldn't really welcome them as we would like but they were interested in the reservoirs and orchard; it seems they like walking a lot so who knows, maybe we'll get to go hiking with them. Downstairs Nejo and co were cracking on and it looked like they would complete the plastering today and then have a break until the tiles which we have ordered for the gym arrive next week. These two rooms are looking so awesome. Bekir was back out with his welder and now I understand more what he's doing with it; he is removing the short fixing on these clamps and welding a really long screw on to make them more secure. Brilliant. Around this time Louise came bounding over looking pleased with herself and showed off her shitty neck which stank to high heaven! I strolled over after laughing at her to see how Sally was doing and found another hole in the floor, not as deep this time, and the location for the third one marked out.

More floor

Getting close to completed

Fixing a pipe to the wall

Who cares about lightning

That storm was heading our way and it was a biggy

Lots of paint chipped off the walls

Byulhan was cracking on with the floor in the lab and pretty quickly finished that entirely, smoothing the final section by the door before blocking the room off with a bit of wood. Outside Bekir was up his ladder and on top of one of the reservoir housings getting the pipe in to bring water from the Roof Terrace. All the time the rumblings of a huge storm were approaching and we could see flashes of lightning all around. Bekir clearly trusted the lightning conductor, however, and stayed out throughout, working sat on the roof to fit the downpipe and ignoring the downpour around him. He was even smiling! I had carried on with my chipping away and had made pretty good progress along the second wall (the one that wouldn't annoy A as much) but I had received my contract for the short term job I've just managed to get and so I had to stop to get that signed and sent off and begin work so I can pay for all this extra stuff I've added on to the end of this building period.

Sally preparing rebar for the column footings

The central column has its hole

Chickens sheltering in the wood shed from the rain

700L and rising fast

The ceiling is now largely on the floor

Footings all in now, ready for column work

The main part of the storm passed pretty quickly but it was very loud while it was over us and Louise was quite scared, climbing onto A's shoulder at one point and clinging on. It continued to rain and Bekir and I checked the balcony to see how it was draining and it was looking good. I found Sally working with metal to make the footings for the next column and also he'd knocked through for the central column already. As I was stood in the doorway of the coal shed there was loads of lightning in the distance but I never managed to get a picture. The chickens had the right idea, sheltering well out of the rain in the wood shed. One benefit of all this rain is we're seeing just how quickly our reservoirs fill and the one next to the woodshed already had 700L in it just after that downpour, and was continuing to fill! Inside Byulhan was up the scaffold with a hammer and a scraper in Sassy's Room bringing down the loose plaster from the ceiling and scraping the white paint off above where I was working. That room is coming on quickly however the dust and rubble is unreal. Finally for working progress, before I took the men home, the footings were all in for the columns in the coal shed.

A riot of colour from the Tortoise Garden

Another Beef Iskander

The Tortoise garden has loved this rain that we have had, as has the rest of the garden to be fair, but it is currently a riot of colour; beautiful. We were neither of us in the mood for cooking that night so headed down to have beef iskander at the restaurant in town. Strangely neither of us were in the mood for pudding so we stuck with the single course and then headed home. A busy day but a good one.

More low cloud in the valley

My lovely modelling space

Bekir shifting soot and rubble from the chimney

Two bricks from inside the chimney

Sally bending metal, expertly

Green paint on the walls

When the alarm went off this morning I was having none of it. Twice. On the third snooze A got up and I stayed in bed but I am truly rubbish at lying in so I got up not long after. It was another overcast and cold looking day with some fog in the valley but not as much as Thursday. A went to collect the men and I did my washing up then got into Room 13 and began working on this contract. The room is really looking good and I snapped a picture of my modelling area to share with a facebook group I am a member of. Bekir's first task of the day was to clean the chimneys and he got them all done, including those going into the Men's Room and the Gym. There was a LOT of rubbish inside these, including whole bricks. They will all work well now, though. Sally was bending metal to form the ironwork in the columns and it was awesome to watch him work so smoothly and accurately without any measurements. In the lab, with the floor finished, Byulhan took some of my paint which I use to make green flock for my models and painted the green parts of the walls again. It was looking very smart in there now.

Byulhan and Bekir both hard at work

The new garden centre we have found

Trees hanging out the side of  Thomas

Column shuttered and ready for cement

A headed out for our weekly shop and I had to pop down to town to see our solicitor about the complaint regarding the person who sold the school to us, but I was back very quickly and back to work. Bekir was still cleaning the chimneys and had pulled so much rubble and soot out he had multiple trips to make with the wheelbarrow to get it outside. Byulhan had finished his painting task and was back to scraping the walls, and coughing as the dust was very bad. After lunch I headed into town with Bekir to look at flooring for the Men's Room, Sassy's Room and the Lab. We were also looking for two new fruit trees (don't ask me which ones; I cannot remember), two new silver birches and some metal roofing for the chicken house. Our trip was a mix of success and failure. We've found a shop which supplies the laminate which we want to put down inside and will go back on Monday to purchase it. It seems to be too late to get good quality fruit trees so that will now have to wait until early next year. The fruit tree shop did, however, point us to a garden centre which neither of us knew about and I was really excited by their stock. The two trees I bought were cheaper than our other supplier, and bigger as well. Finally we got a quote for the metal roofing which was substantially higher than I was hoping for. Time to think about what we do with that. While I was out A got some pictures of Sally at work in the coal shed getting the columns shuttered up and prepared for cement.

Bekir using the heat gun to speed paint removal

The green colour looks good

This tank is very close to being over-full

Water rushing out as A empties it onto the land

A beautiful sunset

When I got back I tried to work but was nodding off feeling rubbish so I went to bed and slept for an hour or so. I woke up to find Bekir using the heat gun to remove the unwanted blackboard paint, which was much quicker than chipping it off. He said he would bring his butane torch on Monday and do the rest of the room really quickly, which is good. Not long after it was time to take them home, through the rain which was falling quite hard and even some hail at their village. The paint in the lab was looking really nice, and progress in Sassy's Room was good, hopefully next week we'll be able to let them go onto another job and we can be left alone. Dinner was a lovely pork chop with spuds and mushrooms and onions and was really tasty. I then came up here to do this update while A was feeding the puppies and then she checked the reservoirs and found that two of them were almost full so we have had to run some water off as the overflow isn't in yet for them! They are filling up so much quicker than I thought they would. The sunset was stunning, as it often is when there is a lot of cloud about, but now it's pitch black and about forty minutes later than I wanted it to be as I've also been talking to the company I'm working for while typing this up.