End of the week

What a day; I've just sat down after watching Gremlins with Rosie, while eating pizza on the sofa, and then reading a long book and getting her to bed and doing the washing up! Let's get to it as it is late already

Finally found some roses for Rosie

Bekir making the corner sharp

All the plastering is done now

Scraping the ceiling and tidying up

Bekir finishing the face of the stairs

Making a start on the final skim of the sub landing

Halil sweeping once again

Stairs are all done

After dropping Rosie at school today I dashed into town to get some dog food and those pizza we just ate and while I was there I finally found some rose bushes for Rosie's school. Success! When I got back the men were already in and working, doing the absolute last bits of plastering on the stairs. With this done they set to cleaning and sweeping up the main floor of the roof space. Then they were into doing some more mortar on the bottom half of the stairs and also on the sub landing, which they completed today. Halil also swept through again and made everything clean ready for Monday when they will start doing the final mortar over the entire floor prior to carpeting.

Rosie waters her rose

This is how you slide down the slide at school...

30 degrees in mid October

Cycling her trike with her giant care bear (and Thelma)

When I collected Rosie the director of the school was waiting for me to plant the rose, as Angela had got in touch for me to let her know I'd finally found one. Rosie had great fun planting it, and we had lots of pictures taken, then we went for a swing again in the playground (lots of her friends were around all very happy to see her) before a quick slide then home. It really was a warm day today, summer is hanging on here. We did some chores in garden (I removed the last of the tomatoes and the melon plants) and I pushed Rosie on the swing again and then it was into pizza/film/bed time.

So there it is. That's the week done. Thanks for reading and I'll be back on Monday.

Men return to the chicken enclosure

I am so out of the habit of writing regular updates. Yesterday (yes, it is now Tuesday morning) I thought about writing this all evening and then when Rosie was to bed I came upstairs and completely forgot about it! So yeah, two updates today (so long as I don't forget again tonight).

Maisie getting new boots

Such a beautiful sunrise

Friday breakfast tradition is established

That's Romania over there

Battle is commenced

Good food with a good friend

Train pulling in to the split-station

A couple of quick things to cover off that weren't about the men's return. On Thursday last week I got Maisie finally to the tyre place and had her ripped tyre replaced; in fact I had both front tyres replaced. She's been fine ever since. Friday there was the most incredible sunrise here which I saw while outside loading the car for my trip away for the weekend. Angela and I are trying to have breakfast together after dropping Rosie to school every Friday and we did it again, I then took her back to the village before starting the 7 hour drive to my mate's house. The route took my right up along the Danube, which was a nice way to go and a new road; the border with Romania runs down the middle of the river. The weekend was an awesome one; some very good games, a lot of fun and banter, and on the last day my mate and I went into Vidin for lunch before I drove back. The journey back was pretty easy; at one point I was stopped at a level crossing while a train went past and stopped at the station; half the platform was on one side of the road and half on the other! Anyway, there you are. Let's get to the meat of the update.

Sifted soil for this little raised bed

Looking for hornets, but they stayed hidden

Getting started on the fence

Raised bed getting full

Sieving the old raised bed soil for the new ones

Bekir getting his welding on

Angela working hard clearing the raised beds

Yesterday I was up and out filling the last currently assembled raised bed (two weeks after I began and then got sick and had to stop) when I got back from dropping Rosie to school. The men arrived pretty much on time and the first thing we asked them to do was look at the hornets which appear to be nesting back in about the same place as last year. Bekir was able to reach from the roof terrace however despite us watching them crawling inside the eaves, none of them came out when he banged. He's going to look again tomorrow so they gathered themselves for the true first job which is finishing off the barbed wire around the chicken enclosure. I continued shoveling and sifting soil until the raised bed was full then went in for breakfast and to do a load of inside stuff. There was some welding for Bekir to do  to create the angles piece to attach the wire to and then they headed out to buy some threaded rod to fix it all in place. Angela was also working very hard all morning in the garden, clearing back the raised beds and removing most of the tomato plants. It looks incredible now she's done.

Angela getting to work on the raised bed

Looking at fixings

This part is now secure

Fixing above the back gate

Very long ladder being moved

With the soil all in the raised bed Angela set about putting in compost and other stuff to improve its quality ready for us to plant. Technically, according to Rosie, this is my raised be so we'll see what gets put in here. The men were continuing to work on the barbed wire section, tying it all in to the wall securely and making sure there were no gaps. They completed the first section, above the duck pond, and then headed to the back gate to finish up there. By the end of the day all the barbed wire work was done and tomorrow they will be doing some brick laying by the back fence, to fill in above the column they poured, and also around the entrance to the wood store - the lintel is actually not supported by anything so that needs to be tidied up some. The final job of the day was lifting the long ladder out and round so they can have another go at the hornets.

Such a beautiful flower

I'll leave you with this beautiful rose - the garden this year has been lovely indeed.

So there you are; I hope I remember to update again tonight! Thanks for reading.

A finishing up day

Today has been so unbelievably busy I wasn't able to get upstairs for many pictures at all however the men have cracked on through the day.

Bekir in a tangle of wires

Halil points to the new plastering he did

Sweeping and tidying up

Plastering this bit again

Rewiring with the box the right way up

It turns out Bekir hadn't quite done all the wiring yesterday; he was putting in the cable for the landing on the stairs at first and then went to work on the junction box that will supply the bedroom. Halil was getting stuck in, as he does, first of all doing some more plastering to finish up above the stairs and then cleaning and tidying everything up from all the work they have done. Then he spotted some plastering he wasn't very pleased with and so did another skim on there. Meanwhile Bekir had finished the bedroom wiring and noticed that one of the big consumer units he had mounted yesterday was on upside down so he took it apart and rewired it. And that is that, we are now finished with the wiring and can start the stairwell walls tomorrow.

Lovely purple flags

Pizza, orangeade and a Tom Clancy book

I noticed yesterday that our flags are starting to bloom which is always a lovely thing to see. I also today finally decided to go out for dinner, having not been in the mood for the past week. It was nice enough and mainly because I got to read some of my book.

The men are back, finally

It was a few weeks longer than expected, but today we had the men back and working in the roof which was a relief. There are LOADS of pictures I've taken in the weeks since they were last here, however, so let's get to them first.

Getting the first full use from the push along

Rosie offroading her police car

Mowing the top bank

A lovely evening sky

Angela sets out the new decorations

Glowing eyed tortoises

Two frogs on a log

Snail with gnomes

In no particular grouping, these are just as they happened. I took out my new push along mower to cut the bits that the ride on can't get to and it was very good indeed. While I was doing this Rosie brought her police car down the ramp onto the lawn, across the grass and then up the driveway. The next day I pulled the ride on mower out onto the top bank and got all of that done. Half way through Rosie got home from school and she jumped on and road with me, which was fun. We have had some mixed weather, of course, but at least one evening was glorious. Angela has been picking up more ornaments for the garden including a cool glowing eye tortoise thing, two frogs and also a snail that is sat next to the gnomes.

Rosie working on her princesses jigsaw

Rosie sat in the boss chair

Sat out in the tent for our lunch

Now that is what I call a family tent

Lots of tug fun going on

Just a little bit of rain

Daddy Saturday (one of them, anyway) involved some fun with the jigsaw before we headed into town with Maisie to get a new part fitted on her engine. This didn't take any time at all, but Rosie did enjoy sitting in the boss's seat for a bit. On the way back we found out about the circus (see the previous update to find out about that!) and picked up our new tent from the courier. It is a bit big; it barely fit into Maisie's boot! It was also really easy to put up, which we did and then had lunch sat in it. I actually slept in it over night as well and it's very comfortable. Then we have a random picture of Rosie playing tug with Thelma and Xena and finally we have had some torrential downpours in the past few weeks as well.

Rosie blowing bubbles

The Tortoise Garden looking great

Out for food with Steve and Rosie

Rosie doing some painting

I walked in the room to find her like this

Rosie planting sunflower seeds

She just spotted one!

Weeding time in the spud garden

After the rain cleared Rosie got to go onto the back steps to play with her bubbles which was a lot of fun. We have also been enjoying all the flowers and bulbs that have been blooming now. During this time our friend Steve can for a visit which was a lot of fun, though I was sick for part of it. Rosie loves him being here and I got to play a few games that I've been wanting to and we got to take Rosie out for dinner as well. Rosie had time for art, for acrobatics and for planting sun flowers and then it was time for the easter egg hunt which was awesome - Angela did a brilliant job hiding the eggs and Rosie ran around squealing whenever she saw one. We have also been active in the garden, trying to get on top of the weeds in the spud garden here.

Rosie with her fairy decorations

The bird feeder waiting for birds...

... and here is our first one!

Rosie doing her own easter egg hunt

Little Tiny has come back

Rosie pretending to be a puppy dog

Getting a few games of Pitch n Plakks

Hanging more solar powered decorations

There were more non-plant related additions to the flower bed, these lovely fairies which Rosie placed herself. We also had a lot of excitement with the first birds arriving to use our bird table however now it is getting a bit annoying to have hundreds of "you've had a visitor" notifications that are just more sparrows. Gotta love our greedy sparrows. Rosie enjoyed her easter egg hunt so much that for several days afterwards she was "hiding" her eggs and then taking her teddies to go and find them. We had some excitement as well as I think Tiny has returned to the farm, no sign of Gizmo tho sadly. Rosie had some fun copying Xena who had been rolling on the grass and we got to play a few games including Pitch n Plakks which we hadn't done for a while. And Angela had bought some bee lights that are now strung out along the fence line.

Halil gets started on the plastering again

Bekir trimming and fitting the carpet

Working away together

Successful grafts

And so we finally reach today. It was great to see the men back and to get some progress upstairs again. Halil spent the day applying more coats of plaster to the walls and made a lot of progress. Bekir, for his part, was in the crawl space fitting the carpet properly along the front edge. This is not a quick process as it involves a lot of drilling and making plugs for screws into the blocks however he got it done. Angela also pointed out that the grafts that Bekir did by the Green Building have taken really well and are starting to grow!

So there it is; what an epic update. Back tomorrow, I hope, and thanks for reading.