Carport is finished

Another week and another Monday without the workers however they were back today so let's catch up on everything that has happened since Friday.

Reading as a family which is great

Rosie draws a face on the scarecrow

Rosie with our scarecrow

Angela getting into the garden

Incredible clouds

Thelma and Xena with a log

Daddy Saturday was an epic day. First thing I sat with Rosie and read through loads of her books while the puppies slept on my legs which was awesome. Once we'd both properly woken up, and Rosie was out of her PJs, we went outside and made a scarecrow for the chicken enclosure. Rosie really enjoyed this and was very proud of it indeed. We then had to go into town for a few bits and pieces and when we came back Angela was up and in the garden. We had a lovely call with my Mum and sister then were back outside into the garden for more planting for Angela while I lay on my back and watched the clouds and played with Rosie and the puppies. It was, all in all, a great day.

Rosie doing some hobbying with me

The tent is pitched and ready for us

Xena sat on my lap

Hot chocolate in the tent before sleep time

Sunday was a very windy day and we spent more of it inside, Rosie did some hobbying with my which was great fun and then, while she was having a nap in the afternoon, I pitched the tent so we could camp that night. The weather slightly improved so we went ahead with this but were woken in the early hours by a pretty impressive thunderstorm with very strong winds, heavy rain and lots of bangs and crashes. Rosie was very brave and we stuck it out, eventually falling back to sleep and then waking in time for her to head to school. It was really awesome to get to camp again this year as I think this'll be the last time before next Spring.

Angela working in the garden again

Lots and lots of planting out

The pallet arrives

Our solar boilers

As I've said we didn't have workmen yesterday but it was still an exciting day. After the storms over night the day was a bright and blustery one, very autumnal, and Angela took advantage to get into the garden again and do loads of planting out of things she received last week. The garden really is filling up now! Just before lunch the courier arrived with the solar boilers from Greece and we had the fun task of unloading them. Luckily the driver was happy to help, which is unusual here to be honest, and we got everything shifted and stored safely in underneath the car port. I'm now very excited to get these mounted and find out how well they work.

Moon over the pre dawn glow

Golden autumn morning

Old drains ready for blocking off

Carving insulation to fill those gaps

Halil stacks and stacks and stacks

Finally we reach this morning and it really was a beautiful start to the day, clear and colourful. First of all the moon above the pre-dawn glow and then, later, the sun bright over the fog in the valley. That fog did rise up to our level soon enough but I was in town with Halil talking to the bank by that point. When we got back we found Bekir had finished all the work on the carport and was doing the final finishing up which was to trim the drains from the now-covered balcony and fill them in with insulation and later on plaster. Halil, for his part, went into the woodstore to finish that job as well. This morning we had lots and lots of fighter jets flying over head and I did manage to get a very bad video of one of them.

Lots and lots and lots of wood

Bekir plasters while Halil tidies

As far as they got digging by hand

Bekir resorts to power tools - sensibly

Not long later the major job that is stacking all of our wood was completed - what a great task and stacked so well as you can see. With that job complete Halil set to tidying all the tools that had been scattered all over the garage and the windowsills while Bekir continued with the plastering and insulating of the gaps. They were both finished and so jumped to the next job which was to complete the digging of holes for poles to support our mesh roof for the chickens. Sadly the incredible winds we'd experienced on Monday night (while camping) had actually snapped our scarecrow in half however Bekir has saved it and he is standing strong again. Tomorrow we'll get the mesh and hopefully this will be a really quick task to get completed as well. I'm so excited for the boilers and the roof space to be done!

So there it is; another long one but that's how these long weekends for the men go. Thanks for reading, back tomorrow.