Snow, then more progress

I'm back after a day off for the men yesterday (though they had a very good excuse) and lots of progress today. Onwards.

Snow, though it didn't really settle at all

Rosie with her two bees

The weather cleared into the evening

It started raining heavily on Tuesday after the men left and it didn't stop all night then it started to snow. Really. From 21 degrees and glorious to snow in less than 12 hours. Crazy times. I was a little concerned that Rosie would be really unhappy at being forced to stay in but she was pretty cool and it was a good day indeed. A painted a second bee on her wall and I played with her and read to her; towards the end of the day the weather cleared and the sun came out so we were able to get outside and get some fresh air which really helped. It was not a bad day at all.

Drips caused this damage

The outside reservoir where it'll sit

Bekir making more reinforcing structures

The first bricks are laid

I had a huge lay in this morning and woke not long before the men arrived. It was misty, but it burned off very fast. The heavy rain of the day before had done a little damage to the cement where our drains had been overwhelmed and dripped 9m from the roof but that isn't too bad. The first thing to do was to get the toilet unit out onto the slab and check out our locations and measurements. This is something that is actually really stressing me a lot as it's a complex bit of kit with not-that-great instructions and I have to communicate them in my terrible Bulgarian. I'm sure we'll get through though. Our supplies of sand are starting to run low so prior to our trip out to order more the men made the most of the remnants, while sifting them through a home made sieve. Bekir got stuck into making reinforcement framing with his pipe bending tool while Sally and Halil got to brick laying.

Fitting the rebar

Strapping the metal to Thomas' roof

Three short walls

Sand delivery on time

After lunch Bekir drilled and fitted his metal for the columns and then we headed out to the shops to get more metal, more cement, order some sand and then go get a quote for the steel so I can decide if we'll do the roof over the balcony or not this year. It was a successful trip all round and when we got back we found that three walls had been completed and then very shortly afterwards the sand delivery arrived.

Shuttering going onto the walls

Sally standing on top, proving how strong it is

Insulation in place, ready for the pour of concrete tomorrow

What bird is this?

From there the men cracked on with fitting the shuttering so they can pour the cement tomorrow. This will have a slightly sloping cement roof on which we can put flowers and plants (maybe even herbs) and the second gap will be storage for garden stuff or Rosie's play stuff. We shall see. They've insulated the roof above the toilet container as it really needs to avoid freezing. I'm really hoping that the positioning is all OK and all the drains and pipes are able to be fitted successfully. We shall see. While we were sitting inside (in one of the few moment when we were inside today; it really has been glorious) we saw this lovely bird out the back window. Any one know what it is?