Another two weeks flies by

Wow, how fast time flies when you're as busy as we are right now. I've just sat down, Sunday afternoon, after a lovely morning drive with A and the puppies and I am looking through the three hundred photographs I've got to work through and do not even know where to start. The last time I updated we had our guests here and I was typing away madly while they were sleeping, also on a Sunday but this time very early in the morning.

And at that point I threw the toys out the pram and shifted my desk down into the kitchen for the winter office; I was too annoyed at being sat up there on my own on my supposed day off. Now to try and write this again, about three hours later.

Very pleased with my new desk

And I'm stood up at my desk!

Views and random

I'm going to start this update off with the thing I usual end it; photographs of views and random things from the past two weeks. There are some wicked ones as well.

After rain, the beautiful morning

Pre-dawn glow

Cloud formations in the distance

Golden leaves on the tea tree

First of all going back to early Sunday morning, 8th October, after the absolutely torrential downpour of the day before, with the sun shining brightly and glistening on the run off through the town. It was a really beautiful morning and our guests spent as much of it stood on the balcony enjoying the view as they could, while I cooked them breakfast. That Saturday rain was the last we've had and the sun has shone brightly every day since. I've had some disturbed nights, with being so busy, and woke before the sun came up to get another shot across the valley. It really is a stunning view! While  I was working away A came and grabbed the camera as there were lenticular clouds hanging around to the north and west of us - we seem to see these quite often now. The year definitely is moving on, however, and the show outside Room 13 window put on by the tea trees has moved to the Stunning Golden Glow stage. This is just beautiful in the evening sunshine as the sun goes down behind the house - the winds are slowly blowing the leaves off and soon it'll be bare for winter.

Fog in the valley, sun above

Pre-dawn photograph taken with my phone

Very shortly afterwards, with my camera

Sun beams through the tea tree

As regular readers know (and welcome, by the way, to my new readers. Thanks for joining us) we see some absolutely amazing sunrises here. This time of year often leads to heavy fog where we are which gathers in the valley and rises with the sun. If you time it just right you can get some stunning pictures. Sometimes the fog doesn't rise and these days are clear and warm from the start. It's a beautiful time of year and a beautiful place from which to appreciate it.

Such an amazing sky greeted us on the roof terrace

The sky which alerted us to the show

Long shot down the sky

Such a firey sunset, amazing in real life too

The show drawing to a close

Finally for this section, however, is the most amazing of sunsets that we watched last week - I was sat working (as usual) and A was in the kitchen and we both looked out, independently, and saw the amazing sky colour from the opposite side of the house to the sunset. Her message to me, to tell me to get up and get a picture, went unanswered as I had just run up to the roof terrace myself. What a thing, and we stayed up there until the show was over. Just beautiful. Later on there's a video of the puppies which also shows some of this sunset.

Guests

Of course the last time I was updating you we had two lovely guests with us, Cis and Michiel from Mechelen, where I was working this time last year. Actually this time last year I was entering my final week away and was very very excited to come home (to a Thelma who ignored me for most of the month of November).

The newly exposed area, empty of archaeologists

An old path, paved with red glazed tiles.

Louise climbed the tower with A

Cis and Michiel relaxing and enjoying the view

Feeling on top of the world!

After a lovely evening, described in the previous entry, despite the torrential downpour outside we woke to a fresh morning and I cooked breakfast while Cis and Michiel enjoyed the view from the balcony. We had planned to get out a bit on the Sunday and so the weather was a boon. After some discussion we decided to visit Perperikon again and had a wonderful time. Thelma was again reluctant to go over the bridges and this time I didn't climb the tower but stayed at the bottom with her. Because we went on a weekend there were coach loads of tourists around however the dig was not active which meant we could go down into it a bit and see the new stuff. All in all it was a lovely visit and we headed back to our favourite restaurant for lunch feeling quite happy. We went on from there for another drive around the area to show them some more sights and then headed back home where everyone fell asleep and rested.

A bottle of Big Peat split three ways

Michiel set with his Elves

Cis picked the Uruk Hai

A with Dwarves (and Louise)

I played with Beorn and Bear

Michiel won, thanks to Tauriel

That evening after eating a superb dinner (and drinking some amazing beer from my mate on Islay - seriously - GO BUY SOME!) we set up on the kitchen island to play a quick game of SBG. I made small lists for everyone and, after a little while explaining the basics, we set to and rolled some dice. What a great evening it turned out to be and full of laughter. This game is so easy for new comers to pick up it was Michiel who won in the end. I had a lot of fun throwing (tossing?) Dwarves around until finally A was able to kill my Bear. We ended the evening sipping whisky and then headed to bed. They had to go the next day, after a too short visit, but hopefully they'll be back soon.

Puppy time

And now for some puppy loving. Lots of awesome pictures from the past couple of weeks of the canines who make our life full of laughs.

Happy with a happy Thelma

Trying to attain the correct temperature

All three puppies on the top bank

Louise fell asleep on my lap

Thelma getting the marrow out of the bone

First of all we headed out in the car with the puppies for some reason (I cannot remember why now) and A drove which meant I got the pleasure of being sat on by Thelma. she loves to ride up here as she can see where she is going and she gets a little car sick when she cannot watch the road. Another day we were sat on the balcony eating our lunch and it was so warm Thelma had to regulate her temperature carefully; half in and half out of the sun. They have got back into playing on the top bank, since the temperatures aren't quite so brutal now, and Rambo even joins them. We've had some lovely time watching out the window as they bounce and chase around. A went out to the shops one day and Louise was most unhappy at being left so she jumped onto my lap while I was working and then fell fast asleep. Bless her, she was out for the count. We do spoil these puppies - they each got a huge bone after Sunday roast and Thelma got to the marrow - she was not very pleased with me taking pictures of her though.

Louise climbing all over A to get away from the vet

She cuddled up with me all afternoon

Later on, snuggled by the fire

This shit STANK so bad

She's so cute, when she wants to be

Fighting in the glow of the sunset

This week we had to take Thelma and Louise to the vet to get their jabs so they can come with us next year to the Whisky Festival. As usual they were less than impressed with having to go there, despite the fact that the jab was over very quickly, and afterwards Louise wouldn't go far from me at all and fell asleep on my lap once more. They then spent the evening curled in front of the fire. Thelma has demonstrated the two sides of JR life - coming in with the stinkiest neck ever and then sitting looking as cute as a button hoping I'd stop taking pictures and start throwing the ball. Finally the picture (and video) hinted at earlier, taken on the roof terrace during the wonder-sunset.

Around the place

So finally a few other items to remember. Well done if you've got this far.

Circling predator

A with a barrow of kindling

Chainsawing - awesome woman!

Fruits of her labours

More wood A cut

Making a brew the old fashioned way

A strong arm to help me out

Rambo and Thelma help me out

We were witness to another swoop by a sparrow hawk, though not on our land, and then watched as two huge birds, possibly eagles, swooped in low towards us then slowly drifted away while we watched; they were certainly after our chicks. Awesome. A has been super busy this week, while I've been stuck at my desk. She broke up a load of the smaller twigs from the trees we collected at the beginning of year and then, this weekend, got the chainsaw out and chopped up a load of the bigger branches. We tidied the garage and our collection of kindling is growing again. We've also had a few power cuts recently, one of which lasted all day. Unfortunately the generator died on us and we were reduced to making brews with the gas stove. My desk was delivered that day. We had a lovely visit for breakfast from Nick and Emma, and Nick helped me load the generator onto the back of Thomas then A took it to the garage. It ended up being a destroyed spark plug as the fuel had gone off; no surprise as it was about 18 months old. We have now drained the fuel and will be putting fresh in soon to test it again.

This place is so beautiful

So there it is; another two weeks and what a two weeks. I need to get back into the weekly habit I think, as it's so hard to remember so long ago with so little sleep and so much work. Today has been epic, I've not worked at all and we went for a lovely drive this morning up to the lakes. I'll leave you with this one picture.

See you again soon. Thanks for reading.

Rain and sun and rain

Once again a late blog, and once again I have a huge stack of pictures (and a couple of videos) and very little idea of what has gone on in the last two weeks, or is it three, since I last updated this blog. I've basically been working and working and therefore once again not really wanting to be sat at my computer for the half and hour or so a day when I'm free and could be doing something else. But I need to get this done else it'll just never get done so let's get on with it. Thanks for reading, as always.

As per usual, with these blogs covering a long period, I'll not do this day by day.... first off...

In the garden

It's coming to the end of the season now, obviously but we have had some nice weather and things are still growing. There's also work to be done as we approach winter to make the place a ready for snow and everything that brings with it.

Tomato trimming going on

A lovely flower on our lawn

Bekir trimming a tree

Bekir trimming another tree

A took herself out into the raised beds a couple of weeks back and trimmed all the dead bits off the tomato plants so the still growing bits could flourish as we approach the end of the growing season. Once again it's been such a fruitful year for tomatoes here. She's also finished digging out and clamping all the spuds which are now in our bottom corridor covered in sand; let's see how well that works for keeping them into the winter. We had Bekir over on Friday this week as well, more of which later, and one of his tasks was to trim down the walnut tree that was growing very close to the power lines; some of the branches actually brushed the cables as they fell so it was good timing to get that job done. He has also trimmed the plum tree over the green building again, which I did last year also, as it was starting to put pressure on the roof.

Bekir's visit

He did more than trim a tree...

View as the sun rose across the valley

Sun-hazed ridge in the mist

Scrub trees into the misty distance

Cleaning out the kitchen pipes

On the roof to clean the chimneys

The cockerel scratching in the soot

Window people back finally

The egg we found on the roof terrace

The reason for Bekir coming over was A lit the fire in the kitchen on Wednesday past and filled both the kitchen and the lounge with smoke. This prompted a call to Bekir who was free on Friday at the usual time. I collected him and took the camera and was so pleased I did - what a view from the top of their cheren put as always. His first task was to sort out the chimneys and he began by taking down the internal pipes and giving them all a good clean. He then went onto the roof and dropped his heavy weight down the chimney that had caused all the problems and unblocked it from whatever had caused the issue. We have found that we share a chimney between the kitchen and lounge so probably next year he'll change that around which will be good. Finally, as you've seen, he also got out and did some tree surgery, and also cleaned the chainsaw filter so now that is running well. He was also finally able to get the window people to come out so now our balcony door works again - this was good as Thursday the key froze in the lock and the door became actually unusable. We took him home at lunch time after a really beneficial visit and hopefully he'll be back in a week or two to redo the grouting on the balcony and then we are ready for winter. While we were looking at the roof terrace (there's a small amount of making good to be done up there as well for winter) we found a birds egg just sat on the wall. Quite late for that, I think? It was broken, sadly.

Winter is coming

That visit was prompted, as I've said, by the fire being lit and winter certainly is on its way, and has arrived and left a few times over the past couple of weeks.

Absolutely bouncing down

Big splash off the metal table

My "winter is here" face

She is more excited than she looks; honest!

Painting station set up in the lounge

Me painting, A relaxing by the fire; perfect evening

Thelma happy to be back in her cave

Snuggling the puppies and recovering from a cold

The day after A did the tomatoes it rained so hard it was literally bouncing off the table outside. We also had water in the back windows on the landing again, once more caused by blocked drainage holes. Once we have finished the walls inside I think this won't be as much of a problem as the dust will reduce. We've really enjoyed using the lounge a bit more with the fire in there lit and a couple of evenings we've gone in there to hobby; both playing a game and I also set myself up a painting area while A read; that was a really nice evening as I got away from my desk for a fair while. The change in the weather has effected us both, and A more, and she hasn't been all that well for a few days though thankfully now she seems to be recovering well. After a few lovely days yesterday was another horrendous day with really heavy rain and a huge thunderstorm that was causing all the lights to flicker. Today is supposed to be drier though so hopefully that forecast is correct; we have guests and want to get some sightseeing in.

Guests

We've had a few guests and visitors over the past few weeks as well, though photographic evidence only of one.

Ready to order

The first guest to mention isn't even human. We were sat having our lunch on the patio, which was a great pleasure to me in itself as I haven't been outside as often as I like, and a bird of prey came swooping in with its eye on our chickens. The roosters did their job, alerting the chickens (and us) and Thelma, Louise and Rambo went barking over towards it. I was gutted to not have my camera as it was stopped its dive about 20 foot in front of us, backed air desperately, and flew off again. What a sight! Sadly we have lost Baker, who we thought maybe had gone to sit on eggs. We can't find her and with that big bird around and hungry maybe she's been got. I hope she appears in a few weeks with a gaggle of chicks following her. We shall see. Our second guests were Venko and family who popped past for a few hours for a brew; that was a lovely visit though very short. Next summer we'll have to be more free and get them for a BBQ again. We've also had Nick and Emma past for breakfast which was lovely; gorgeous scrambled eggs. Emma has been over again since as well for a coffee. The Little Lady came past too and she is looking a lot better now which is a huge relief. Finally yesterday my friend from Belgium arrived for his visit. He is only staying a couple of nights and so last night we took him for Iskander in town, which was superb, and today (it's early Sunday morning as I type this) we're going to drive around and show him some of the sights.

Moon

This requires no introduction really; some lovely photographs of the moon is all:

The moon was red as it rose

So bright as well; this on full auto

The next night, through whispy clouds

The puppies

Last but by no means least we have a few more photographs, and a video, of the puppies.

Thelma holding her ball, waiting for us

Sisters cuddling

They are so happy that the temperature has dropped a bit (but whenever it rains they are furious of course). Having not really fought or played alone very much for months now there are once again daily scraps on the sofa, and they have been racing around on the top bank again chasing each other and having great fun.Once while we were watching from the top corridor we saw Louise literally turning somersaults as she played. How awesome. Thelma is still completely addicted to her ball and her toys and we do have to entertain her as well, though she also is beginning to play on her own a bit more. Finally a photograph taken while I sat with A at the end of my working day in the nook; Louise with her front leg over Thelma, cuddling her sister. Too much cute!