All sorts, and Halil Garden Help

Today Halil came past to help me in the garden, something I'm hoping will be a relatively regular thing on a Sunday and so I will do an update whenever he does come past. Lots has gone on so let's get into it.

New swing is super fun

A scary monster and Rosie

New boat on the front lawn

A snake that visited us

Enjoying the sun

New style of meal

This time I'm just going to go through the pictures and videos in order as there isn't so much to go through. The day after the last blog Rosie was straight out onto her swing, and she's been swinging a lot on it and loving it; I'm so happy  she is having such fun with it. Continuing the theme She drew lots and lots of monsters on the patio with her chalks, this one was supposed to "scare me out of my head". On the Saturday we pulled the new boat out and Rosie and I got it inflated to check it out, just on the front lawn.  Later that day we saw a snake by the green building; the first we've seen on our land for a while. My foot was starting to hurt that day and the next day I was in agony, but had to drive with Rosie to a play date which was great fun I just wish I'd not been in such pain. She played with the little girl of my friend and we picked cherries and just had a great time. On Monday I went with Halil into town to see a doctor and ended up at the hospital with lots of tests and even more waiting around. Eventually I was diagnosed with gout, which blows my mind, but at least I had some medicine and it did work fast. I got to chill with Rosie on the patio in the sun (and Dutch got involved) which put a smile on my face that I didn't want to have before because of the pain. This has now caused me to change my diet, which puts more pressure on Angela which is really frustrating.

I decided I needed to weed this section

Looking very much better

A storm in the distance

A hole in the clouds

Playing a fun game

More sun bathing with Rosie and the puppies

So much grass to mow

How is that even slightly comfortable

Onwards. I was off my feet for a few days and got so bored that one lunch time I went out and weeded one of the flower beds and got told off because the next day my foot was worse again. Silly me but I hate sitting around. Angela got to go spend an evening with our friend one night and I had lots of fun with Rosie. We were outside watching a storm come in, and marveling at the square hole in the clouds that appeared above us. Then we played some games and sunbathed. I also spent two entire days cutting the grass and almost bought myself a robot mower. I've noticed today that the tyre on my ride-on mower is totally flat so that's a bit annoying. I got to watch a very terrible film that evening and Xena fell asleep in a very unusual position.

A weevil in the garden

A stunning rose in our garden

Clearing more trees

Rosie's lovely Rose

The cutting is ALIVE!

Trying to grow an avocado seed

Time for some garden and growing pictures. We have had to do lots of watering and I saw an interesting beetle, maybe a weevil, on a thistle leaf. It was there for a couple of days. The roses have been doing really well, so stunning! We had a power cut one of the days so I was unable to work; I went out into the garden and did some more digging out of trees. The power came back on just as I finished, thank goodness. That evening I got a grab a picture of Rosie's Rose, that I bought while collecting my mum for her visit. So beautiful! Finally inside the vine cutting that I've been watering now for weeks thinking that it was dead but not giving up, it has new growth on it and by now it has four or five big leaves! I'm so happy about it. My new diet brought some avocado for breakfast and Rosie and I have planted two of the stones to see if we can grow them.

Some of our wildlife

Dutch hates being kept out

More chilling in the sun with Xena

A fun way to play with her swing

Face painting fun in town

In the park

Park exercise equipment

About to get pushed into the pond

In the middle of the pond

Angela on the bank while we float around

Our tortoise visitor

We're getting close to today now. Last week I took a lovely walk with Rosie around the garden and saw lots of cool things including a hairy caterpillar in a tree. We also camped which was brilliant and the day I took the tent down Dutch lay glaring at me through the fence - he hates being excluded. More fun with Rosie, she was shouting to me to go and see her on the balcony after school one day and I went to find she'd climbed on the swinging chair with Xena. She's been having so much fun with her swing, though not always actually swinging on it. On Friday it was National Children's Day here so after school Angela took Rosie to the park and I went down and joined them and watched lots of dancing and show, Rosie get her face painted, then we went to the park and finally had some food in town before heading home. It was really nice. Yesterday we were up and out to take the boat to a pond. We went to our mountain village however when we got there we found lots of people fishing and decided to not disturb them so we ended up back at our home village on the pond up the hill that we normally walk to and it was just magical. Rosie loved it and so did I. When we got back here was a large tortoise by our gate.

Out before it got too hot to do our weeding

I got this dug out over about 1.5 hours

Rosie's butterfly jar

Halil gets stuck in digging out trees

Cutting down the dead tree

A broken strap

It got up to 34 degrees

Cutting branches with an axe

Xena joined me in Thomas as I was pulling roots

We cleared loads in the two hours

And so we finally reach today. This morning before Rosie woke (she had an epic lay in) Angela and I both went into the garden and did a load of weeding which was really needed. I found a dead butterfly while I was weeding and Rosie was very sad so she took it inside and made a little garden for it in a bottle. Halil arrived at 10am and we went out into the garden and slaved for about two hours working together to remove trees by the side of the drive. It was very hot, and pretty hard work, but we got loads done and it was so satisfying. We ended up using Thomas to drag a load of the roots out rather than having to break our backs digging them out. Some were very strong and we broke our strap multiple times and in the end had to cut if off the tow bar as it was so tight from being pulled so hard.

The first storm blows towards us but misses us

Such a beautiful sunset this evening

After Halil went and I had some lunch I fell asleep on the sofa and woke to the sound of thunder. A huge storm was blowing in that I then enjoyed with Rosie on the balcony. Then a second storm blew over and this one hit us hard. There were two very very loud large bangs in particular where the lightning struck really close to us. Xena was so scared she ran and hid right under my bed for ages bless her. The storm lingered for quite a long time but did eventually blow past and the sunset was stunning as I sat down to start writing this. Now it's pitch black and this took me all evening!

So there it is. I think Halil will be back in a couple of weeks so I'll do another update then. Thanks for reading.

Christmas, New Year, and back to tiling

All through the Christmas break I've meant to write a catchup update so my update today wouldn't be quite so long and crazy however I'm sitting here now with the men working downstairs and I've got a bunch to catch up on so let's get to it!

Pickle riding her plane

Snow still on the ground

T shirts are now hung on the wall

Rosie vacuuming under the old desk

Rosie with her final advent calendar chocolate

A glorious sunrise on Christmas Eve

Now that's a big goat leg

Too big for our cooker!

Sammy still hanging on

Getting stuck into our feast

Rosie ready for bed

Now Christmas can happen

So back to Christmas Eve Eve and one of the most fun Elf hunts we had which involved Pickle riding the foam airplane round and round while attached to one of our ceiling fans. It was epic! Rosie really loved the Elf this year and now that she's gone she is already looking forward to next Christmas. I had to pop to town to collect some stuff from the courier and while I was out was called by Angela because of a broken blender so an emergency pit stop was help which ended up successful. When I got back I spent some time hanging up some of my gig t shirts along the roof corridor and then Rosie and I did our Saturday cleaning with Rosie being super helpful and operating the vacuum cleaner. Christmas Eve was another beautiful day, Rosie was happy to finally get to the large chocolate in her advent calendar and we had a fun day of goat preparation (including me getting the hack saw out again) so it could be prepared before the big day. Sammy the snowman had just not completely melted yet and there was some swinging and running around outside before a super fun Christmas Eve Feast, like a buffet which we all really enjoyed. Rosie headed to bed with her Christmas Eve toys and Angela and I watched Die Hard before hitting the sack early ourselves. Rosie had been told to not wake us unless it was light outside but we had no real hope of that happening...

A very super excited Rosie

These puppies love Christmas

Rosie loves her new puppet

Rosie has worn this dress EVERY day since!

There's a little of Sammy remaining

Perfectly cooked goat leg

Playing with mummy

... and it didn't. It was about 5:30 that Rosie appeared upstairs super excited having found her stocking hanging on her door with some gifts in it. That was it and our day began and what an absolutely lovely day it was. Just the best. I did take lots of pictures of presents being opened through the day but won't bore you with them all. As is traditional Thelma and Xena got incredibly excited to tear up wrapping paper. Sammy did hang on until Christmas day, against all the odds of the warm weather we've been experiencing, so we can pretend it was a white Christmas. The roast goat was just beyond amazing (as always, to be honest) and after dinner there was still time for playing with some of the new toys she received, some fun swords and shields.

Now I can listen to my records again

Rosie with floppy eared bunny

Cooking up breakfast

Rosie all made up

Rosie is great at this game!

None of us are good at this game

Setting cones out to drive around

Chilling out at Nanny's house

Amazing tasty Goat Curry

Boxing day began with time to set up the sound system in the roof so I could listen to my record that was my gift from my mum. Rosie also came to join me and it was a lovely time to listen to Pink Floyd together. Then I cooked up some Bubble & Squeak from leftovers from yesterday and it was very tasty indeed. The rest of the day was full of fun and play. Rosie got her new makeup up, then we played a few games of air hockey (a gift from me to Angela) and finally a game of "Who Am I?" which was bought for Rosie and we had a great time. The weather was so lovely Rosie got to drive her car around the patio for ages before heading over to the neighbours and spending time with Nanny. My favourite time of the year, however, is Goat Curry and it was just so tasty. Everything has been awesome this year.

Rosie on the Merry Go Round at the park

Rosie checking out the Christmas decorations

Let's have some burger for lunch

Thelma dragging Rosie around

Another burger at another restaurant

DVD storage in place

Rosie planting some bulbs

Very proud of finishing her jigsaw

Rosie taking pictures of EVERYTHING

Between Christmas and New Year we continued to have lots of family fun and taking advantage of being able to spend time together. We went to the park in town to see the small fun fayre, check out the public decorations, then went for lunch at a takeaway. Later on we went to go to a new restaurant a friend has just opened however unfortunately he didn't have his chef in so we went to a normal restaurant where we technically needed a reservation but they fitted us in anyway. I also found time to put up a new DVD storage unit which actually isn't big enough so we've got another one on its way. Outside the weather was nice enough that we got a few jobs done, including planting out a whole load of bulbs to brighten up spring.  Rosie has been getting really good at jigsaw puzzles recently and finished an epic one before New Year. She actually did another the same size just last weekend. Brilliant! New Year was both awesome and a bit rubbish - the rubbish was because Angela came down unwell and was not able to join us however the evening was back to the best again and Rosie and I had a blast before heading home just before New Year so we could watch the fireworks from the balcony.

Rosie riding her bike around

New bass guitar and she's a beaut

Angela chipping up some sticks

Rosie teaching Dutch on the lead

Working on a small jigsaw

Gluing together wood with me

She's now finished this jigsaw

And so to the last few pictures before today. We've continued to have lovely weather and have taken advantage as much as we can to get outside, both for play and also to get chores done. I got a new bass guitar, Dutch was trained a little on his lead (and he's rubbish at it!) and inside Rosie did more jigsaws and also helped me with some fabrication of wooden frames that will be used for the new model railway that is being started.

Bekir working in the cramped area

Bekir chiseling away at the floor

First wall tile being positioned

A whole lot of wall tiling

State of play at the end of the day

Today we had the men back to complete the tiling for the cupboard under the stairs. The first task was the floor tiles and they got almost all of those done, the only ones left are the final few right round the corner into the lowest part of the cupboard. There was some fiddly pieces to cut and fit around by the door and then they began to set the tiles on the walls to act as skirting boards. This part of the job has now almost been completed as well so tomorrow hopefully they can complete those last few tiles round the corner, and do the grouting. We shall see.

So there we have it. We're caught up, and should be back again tomorrow. Thanks for reading!