Feeling privileged

Several times in the past few days, mainly as I've been driving with the men, it has struck me quite forcefully just what a privilege it is to live here. Such beautiful countryside, lovely people and our home is really starting to come together into a beautiful place. In today's world a lot of the time being "privileged" is considered to be a negative thing however I welcome our good fortune and enjoy every second of this wonderful place.

Superb spot for Sunday Roast

Anyway back to it and one picture (again showing just what we have to be thankful for) taken on Sunday evening as we ate our lovely roast dinner while sat on the roof terrace enjoying the warmth and the views. We haven't eaten up there since as the weather has taken a slight turn for the worse but that just means we are able to enjoy our dining room.

Securing the ridge of the Green Building

Louise enjoying the sun

Bekir up the huge ladder once more

Another mix, this one too small for the mixer

Sally hammers some metal into shape

Monday morning arrived too early and I stayed in bed for a short while after A got up; it was her turn to collect the men. It was a lovely day, though a bit chilly, and the men cracked on with their jobs; Sally was up on the roof of the Green Building where he had hauled one of the large wooden girders up and was nailing it into place to provide strength for the ridge. Inside the sun was streaming in through the windows and Louise found a warm spot and parked herself there while A and I did some tidying around. Bekir had moved round to make a start on the next downpipe for the drainage while Yulhan was mixing up some cement to do the window sills in the laboratory. Sally, having secured the ridgeline, was back to the unpleasant task of hammering out the old guttering for the roof. Nejo had also come back on site and was working away with his helper to finish off the plastering. We had a bit of a situation where the scaffold was needed upstairs by Yulhan but there was still an hour or so of work to be done downstairs. I sorted this out, then found the cross-beam for the small scaffold which they are still using now and seem happy with; it's tough to juggle multiple teams of builders sometimes.

Rambo looking his usual dopey self

The river has water in it, rushing over the shallows

A beautiful view from our table

One of several fishermen; the fish were visible from where we were sitting

A showing how chilly it became when the sun went in

Breakfast was taken on the patio, as is now becoming our habit, and we had the puppies and Rambo with us to entertain us. Thelma had a stick which Louise stole and I was able finally to get a video of how they act when this happens. It's so funny to watch. The rest of our morning was taken up by meeting a lady in the local town who is a language teacher and we were hoping would take us on to learn Bulgarian properly. We met her fine and had a nice cup of coffee while chatting, then were shown the schoolroom we would be using and finally went off to buy the textbook. One hour a week on a Monday has been booked in and fingers crossed this will lead to our language skills improving. We stopped at our favourite restaurant on the way back to have some lunch and were able to sit outside with a view over the river for the first time. It was warm but then the clouds blew in and it got a bit chilly. It was beautiful, however, and a good idea to take some time there before going home.

Sally securing the roof with cement

Pipes leading down into the reservoir

The Men's Room getting plastered

Patching up the walls in the lab

Welding a tie for the pipes

We got home after the men's lunch break had finished to find good progress; Sally was doing the last of the cementing on the roof of the Green Building while Bekir had done the run of pipes round to the storage tank. Inside Nejo and co were continuing their plastering work and it was really starting to look nice, particularly in the small "gym" room. Upstairs Yulhan had cracked on with the windowsills and was now making the walls good. He has fully understood that this is not the "final fit" for this room and we just want it good enough to prevent dust and he's doing a great job at that. Bekir, meanwhile, was fabricating some ties for the pipework; he's had to strengthen the shop bought ones for some of the run to make them more reliable.

Bekir grinding down the tiles to fit around the pipes

The puppies join me for an afternoon snooze

Sally at the end of the roof

My favourite tree blossoms again

We were both pretty wiped out, and A wasn't feeling well again sadly, so took ourselves for a rest in the afternoon. A went to bed while I snoozed on the swinging chair down on the front garden. It was a lovely rest, not even very disturbed by the sound of the workmen including Bekir grinding down some tiles. The puppies jumped up and fell asleep on my legs while Rambo snoozed on the grass by my side. It was lovely. When I woke up I took a stroll around the land to check things out; Sally was right at the very end of the roof doing the last little bits up there which is just superb. It is such a weight off our minds to know that we can leave that building for another few years without risk of it falling down. Our plans can now be completed without a rush. I remembered, during this stroll, to go onto the balcony to get a picture of something really exciting I spotted; my favourite tree, the old pear tree, which I was sure was dead or close to dying has put out a load of blossom. I'm so pleased.

A using the hose I connected up to water the greens

Surely Rambo is big enough and doesn't need watering

Thelma deep in a hole hunting something or nothing

The family having a cuddle

One dead limb caught mid-fall

A climbs up to clear more dead branches

Clouds thinning into the evening

First reservoir plumbed in

Once we were both up and about it was watering time and A got the plants done, then got Rambo as well. He loves it, though, and tries to catch the spray in his mouth. The puppies, for their part, were very busy chasing something (most likely nothing) into a hole under one of the stones surrounding the hugelkultur. Thelma got her entire head and shoulders in there. Then it was time for a short rest and A got cuddles from everyone while she swung on the chair. One thing that we have been a bit slack with is trimming the snow damage from two years ago and this suddenly presented itself as a good time to crack on with it so the chainsaw was collected and we walked along the front cutting off the dead branches on our walnut trees. There was one in particular which had suffered badly and A climbed it to push down broken limbs stuck in the top. The heavy cloud of the afternoon had broken up a bit by the end of the day and presented quite a lovely view. The big excitement for me, however, was the fact that one of our reservoirs was now plumbed in and rain was forecast for the night.

A sunny start, but not very warm

Another load of sand is delivered

Bekir working on the roof

Ready for cement on the floor

Sally smiling as always

Tuesday morning dawned sunny enough but there had been rain over night and so a very small amount of rain water was in the tank. More on that later. I checked out the lab to see how the ceiling was looking at Yulhan had put a thin coat of whitewash on, just to brighten the room up. I think it was a definite improvement and well worth doing. I collected the men and we went past the large builders merchant on the way back to get some stuff for Bekir; this time we didn't stop for coffee and it was a quick trip. We needed more sand for all the cement work that is going to happen over the next few days so there was a large delivery of that as well, the puppies have already been climbing and playing in it loads. Bekir was on the roof working to get the damaged guttering fixed up while Yulhan mixed cement to put on the floor of the lab. All good exciting progress. Sally was still on the roof of the Green Building tidying and cleaning it before moving on to his next task.

Bekir cutting some metal for our columns

Checking out the metal load

Bekir with chainsaw up the tree

Very excited about our first collected water

Framework for the pea plants to climb

Sally's next task would be to start on the columns in the old coal shed. An ekont had arrived so I went into town with Bekir for a quick trip to collect that post and get metal, cement and a few other bits from the shop. When we got there we found that it was rammed and the nice lady was on her own.It took  a fair while to get everything sorted out, and Bekir got us ready before someone came to check what we had packed, but eventually we were on our way back up towards home and just before lunch. At the end of the lunch break Bekir remembered to grab the chainsaw to trim down the damaged branches that we hadn't been able to reach; he just clambered up and got to it; much better at heights than me! After watching this I remembered to show A the water collected in our reservoir; there isn't much but it's a beginning! After this I did one of my chores which I have kept forgetting which was to fit something for the pea plants to climb up. As you can see the puppies were still hunting every sniff of anything or nothing.

Yulhan, with a level set, doing the floor

Just over half way

All complete

Sally cleans up the land after his work

Thelma and toy and huuuuuge tongue

Yulhan had finished his prep work and was now ready to put the cement on the floor in the lab and he pretty well cracked on with that for the afternoon. Because of the huge shelving units that are in there, too big to get out the door, he's having to do the floor in two sections and he did as much as he could without having to shift any furniture. Sally had finally completed the fix of the Green Building roof and was now doing his usual thing of tidying up completely after himself. He has left that area so much cleaner and neater than it was before he started work. What a chap. Thelma and Louise have both been loving the nicer weather and being able to be outside much more often; Thelma is happy to have her ball thrown for her so it bounces down the drive round the corner. Right now as I type this up she's fighting with Louise all around Room 13, with regular breaks for a drink or a quick snack.

Dusting the pipe prior to mounting

A junction is fitted

Now more water reaches our reservoir

Yulhan taking one of hundreds of screws out

Bekir was carrying on with his pipe work and I caught him at one point cleaning a pipe which had been stored in the workshop for two years and was a bit dusty; another example of the kind of workers they are. He was working to bring the second feed into this reservoir, from the roof near the roof terrace, and was changing the drainage pattern to prevent water spilling down from the open gutter which used to really annoy us. Yulhan, meanwhile and with the flooring done in the lab, began to remove the wooden flooring I'd put in Sassy's room last year. What a horrible task and it prompted me to take over from him and set myself the task of doing this all myself. Before I took the men home I did another couple of chores, digging in the manure left over from the spud covering and also digging out some weeds that were getting a bit big. I don't have pictures as I forgot to take any. I haven't mentioned Nejo doing anything today as he didn't; he had the day off.

The state of the floor when I started in the morning

The big lift begins

The four shelving units are stashed

Those lovely green walls, and piles of rat poo

This morning I asked A to collect the men as I was cracking on with taking up the floor in Sassy's Room and after doing my washing up task I got back in there and set to. Nejo was back and working away in the Men's Room while I was upstairs draining batteries on hand drills. As I was working at first I was feeling a little silly pulling it up as it was fitted far better than I remembered and probably could just have had laminate put over the top and been good enough but the more I think the more I want it done right. I think. Anyway the men arrived and I hadn't quite finished the target I'd set myself for before they got back but I was close. The first task for Bekir and Yulhan was to shift the shelving units across onto the floor finished the day before. I gave them a hand, just being there in case something fell, but it was an easy job and soon enough the four "keeper" units were stashed in the corner and the rest of the room was available for work. When A came to have a look, and admire the green walls that had been revealed, the puppies were very interested in the smell of rats from the revealed rubbish piles.

Finally the floor has been removed

A huge stack of boards spoils the view

Lots of 400mm (if I remember correctly) support struts

This is how many screws were in that floor

I spent the rest of the morning, the entirety of it actually, pulling up the boards and slat that I had put down for a floor in Sassy's Room. I stopped just around lunch time and took a lovely rest and I really needed it. It was more effort putting it down, I'm sure, but it was hard enough unscrewing that huge pile of screws from the boards where in a lot of places you couldn't see the screw head because of dust and cement ground into the board. Some of the screws snapped as well, which made it more difficult, but it was a good feeling to complete the task at hand.

I asked him to knock this wall down for access purposes

Sally looking at the hole he had created

Down there is the foundations

He's back to excavating

The settled upon solution

Sally had spent the end of the night before knocking nails out of some planks from the old roof and this morning he hammered them back together to make shuttering for his first column. A little into the afternoon I took a walk up to see how he was doing and found him next to a huge hole in the floor of the coal shed looking a little concerned. It turns out that this building isn't sat on the rock but is built up with loose rubble.  As he wants his beam to be really solid he was digging to the bedrock and it wasn't looking possible. Eventually he decided to make a metal frame and pour a load of concrete around it to act as a base. I think this will be strong enough for sure.

Yulhan on with the door surround

Whitewashing the walls

More pipes on our walls

Rinsing out one of the reservoirs

Men's Room looking really awesome

Holes filled and painted over

And so to the other workers. First of all Yulhan cleaned out the floor of the lab, scraped some of the walls that would need a slight replaster, cemented around the doorway on both sides as there were gaping holes there and whitewashed the newly revealed walls (but not over that lovely green). Bekir carried on with his drainage work and was now round the back of the property. He has brought the water into the little house but discovered that this reservoir was the one we had bought from down the hill and had some white liquid in it. He washed this out with free water from our spring. Nejo and his helper had been working away steadily all day and nearly the whole of the Men's Room is now plastered. I think we'll have another couple of days without them soon, however, as we're waiting for tiles to be delivered for the gym. At the end of the day Yulhan went round with his ladder and a paint brush and touched up where the holes had been made with the temporary downpipes. I had also been busy, working on the walls in Sassy's Room to chip off the loose paint but I have no pictures of that, not even before and after ones; how slack of me;

Courgettes planted out

Another sweetcorn attempt

Clouds gather for the evening

And so to this evening, and the end of another epic update. I may have to go to Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday updates at this rate. That being said I really do hope the workmen aren't here for much longer, much as I like them. We both want a break from it. A was out in the garden a bit towards the end of the day and planted out the courgettes and sweetcorn, putting them under cloches this time though that horse has bolted badly as we basically lost everything to that late frost. A lesson learned. I cooked Spicy Pork Pasta which was lovely (and even managed to stop eating so we have some for lunch tomorrow) and the sky put on a lovely show that I captured from the roof terrace while typing this up.

If you got this far and read it all well done; what an epic. A lot has happened, though; I don't know where I could have shortened it without missing out stuff that I wanted included. Thanks for reading!