Workmen and a Wedding

What a week, and what a lot of pictures/videos I have to go through! Looking in the folder I see 524 of them, though a lot of them are duplicates as I just hammer the shutter and hope to get at least one good shot out of ten of any one subject; the pleasure of digital photography. It has been a good week, and an awesome weekend, and now I am wishing I had broken it up a bit on done a blog before the weekend; never mind I am where I am. Here goes.

Sally getting stuck in to the lounge railings

Later on, cutting out the damaged shower tray

The ceiling in Room 13 gets a skim

Bekir plumbing for the boiler

A new toy; a large cement mixer

As you may (or may not - if not, please read the previous blog) recall last week the workmen finally came back to finish off Room 13 and the few bits and pieces that we have on our urgent list for this year. After not being in on Monday we had a Sally back with us on Tuesday which was so awesome; we both love Sally! He was given a couple of little tasks to do; first of all finish the railing around the spiral stairs and then he started work on the damaged shower tray in the downstairs toilet becaues the drill bit he was using turned red and melted; another item for my shopping list. Yulhan was back plastering the ceiling and Bekir was doing plumbing and electricals which then Yulhan made good with cement. Talking of shopping lists I headed out to town to pick up the cement mixer that I probably should have bought three years ago; hopefully this will (eventually, as you'll see later) speed up and improve the cement quality for small to medium sized batches. I also dropped off my newer hammer drill to be fixed as the chuck was slipping.

Enjoying the heat of the day together

The lettuce survived well under glass

Our garlic is thriving

Lazy birds in the, now empty, wood shed

Thelma running back with her ring

Taking a short rest in play

Rambo running along with Thelma

Louise stood on the bench, watching

Happily chewing on a stick

It was another lovely day, after  abit of a cloudy start, and lunch time saw us relaxing round the corner on our recliners with the puppies. A was very busy working but was fortunately able to get out for a bit with me then. The garden was looking very lovely and our crop of lettuce (we have two raised beds like this; plenty for us) and garlic has really done well having survived the winter. The chickens were hiding in the wood shed and later, when she got away again and took the puppies onto the back bank, Thelma ran until she could run no more. I was sleeping while A did this as I took an afternoon nap; the early starts to collect the men were a shock to the system after months of no alarm calls.

Ceiling plastered

Boiler plumbing in

Snapping off the excess fibreglass

Inside the ceiling was completed, Sally had managed to remove all the fibreglass from the base of the shower cubicle and Bekir had completed the plumbing for the boiler. Awesome progress.

Hand mixing cement

Bekir plumbing in the drainage

This floor should be much more secure

Grinding down after welding

Cement covers up the pipes and cables

Wednesday was once again a slightly cooler start that warmed up once the sun broke through. The day began with Sally mixing up some cement however he ignored the new, expensive, cement mixer and went with the shovel and mixed it up; I didn't notice this at the time however ever since the cement mixer still sits clean and hasn't been touched; I think it's just what they know but it is a bit frustrating having bought that to improve things and, despite a few comments that I have made, still have it sitting unused; it's tough with the language barrier. I'll probably have a word again today. Anyway, this cement was being mixed to fill in the gap where the shower tray has been removed. There was a very quick trip to town to pick up a new drain so hopefully the problem we had with water taking a while to exit will now be sorted out. With this process begun they left the first cement to go off for a bit and went back to working on the railing. We had changed our minds very slightly and so one of the uprights for the return had to be moved and together Bekir and Sally cut, moved and reattached this. While they were working on this Yulhan cemented in all the pipes and cables for the boiler. Things were moving fast.

Railings leant in place

Sally grinning as I snap his picture

Cement poured for a reservoir housing

More plastering is done

The view from the picture window

In the afternoon Sally fixed the railing in place so now the lounge is basically fully completed. We still have to put the wooden bannisters on, and replace the wooden rungs with more solid ones, but other than that we're good. With this done he moved on to the next job which was to pour cement for the other two reservoir locations. By the end of the day he had finished off one of these. It was due to rain that night so A and I covered it in plastic and we were pleased we did as there was quite a large storm and it rained very heavily. Yulhan was cracking on with the plastering and Room 13 really was starting to take shape. Bekir, meanwhile, completed the cement work in the bathroom and also did some finishing around Room 13. It was a lovely sunset, though the clouds brought what they threatened, and I stood in the nook and attempted to capture the view from the picture window there. It's going to be amazing in the summer when the sunset is even further round.

Sally makes a start on the second reservoir location

Mixing up some more plaster

The lorry is unloaded

A wall is begun

Blue sky as Sally builds a wall

Dinner once again

About 4 minutes between pictures

Louise teasing Thelma

On Thursday we were one man down as Bekir had to work elsewhere for the day. It was still a busy one with Yulhan continuing his plastering and Sally digging out and pouring concrete for the second reservoir behind the building. Later on we had the delivery of concrete bricks and cement (or at least half of it) which will be used in building the reservoir storage. I got stuck in and helped unload the truck and then Sally got straight to bricklaying, after a bit of conversation about how large it would need to be and whether we'd have space down the sides to access for insulating purposes. After a really cold and miserable start the weather picked up fast and it was warm by the middle of the day. A and I took some time in the garden (and captured video of the puppies digging for moles); we particularly love seeing the flags starting to come again. Not long now and the garden will be a riot of colour once more. That night we went out for dinner which was superb until a couple of children, who had been behaving well, decided that the whole restaurant was a playground. Imagine screaming kids throwing themselves on the floor and running around up to my table; imagine me telling them "no!" and "go!" and "sit down!" and eventually the staff having a word. We went back to our own two naughty girls and laughed at them as they fought over a bone - with the weather warming up so has their play time and a couple of times this week they have just chased each other round the kitchen for a while for no apparent reason other than the joy of it. Such fun puppies.

A misty start, but the sun is making an effort

Sally building the platform to raise the reservoir a bit

Boiler and electrics done

The final wall is being plastered

A racing buggy in town

Friday morning we were back up to a full complement and progress was once against impressive. It was a misty start but cleared up again so Sally could work outside in nice warm conditions. Bekir continued doing the boiler and electrics and has got it all working and the switches in the box for the rest of the room. Inside Room 13 Yulhan was still plastering, onto the final wall so that the room could be left to dry over the weekend ready for painting on Monday. A and I went out just before lunch to try and see the independence day celebrations in town however we were late and it had finished when we got there; we did see some of the off road vehicles that are currently racing in the region (though they haven't returned to our village this year, sadly - that was a happy memory from a few years back... check this link out for the blog post) but our lack of success continued when we tried to get a kebab (they'd run out of meat) and go to a restaurant (they were totally full) so it was a bit of a disappointing trip. We were able to get the final reservoir that we need so that was good.

Thelma rolled in shit

She got a double shitty neck

Reservoir in place

Planting seeds

Digging a big rock out

Managed to shift it

A productive evening as well

After eating some very welcome egg mayo butties (not the kebab we were both wanting but never mind) we went out into the warm of the afternoon. Thelma was having a great time and managed to find some duck poo to roll in; she got both sides of her neck and was stinking! I was laughing, of course. Sally had made good progress and completed the raised platform for the reservoir so it had been lifted on so the rest of the walls could be built around it. There is now room to put a watering can underneath the tap which is how we will be using it for now. Eventually I may get a pump in each tank. We'll see. A was keen to take advantage of the weather and found a warm place round the corner (our sunbathing spot being now a water tank location) where she could sit and plant seeds into trays. I was not sitting around (much) either and grabbed the fork to finish off the second dig of our garden. I had previously found, and subsequently forgotten, a huge rock up this end so rather than ignore it again I got the shovel and managed to dig it out. At one point I thought that I had actually reached bedrock but a little more excavating and it started to move. Of course I had to have a photograph taken. We were both really exhausted in the evening however I was pleased that I got a sudden burst of energy and finished painting three models that have been sat on my desk for a while and then got on and did eight more so we can now play one of the scenarios that I've been building scenery for.

A really glorious sunrise

Sassy saying good morning

A very sleepy puppy

The perfect morning brew location

Saturday morning arrived with a glorious sunrise and fog in the valley. I grabbed the camera for a quick photograph before going in to make brews to bring outside. Sassy was up and about and wanted to see what was going on but Thelma was still in bed and had no interest in moving. By the time the brews were made and A was up the fog was starting to coalesce around us and the clear morning had ended. It was still beautiful and we stayed out there in the peace (other than Thelma shouting at her ball) enjoying the beauty. This is the first balcony brew of the year!

All the finishing off tiling has been completed

A lovely spot for some scrambled eggs

The puppies loving the sunshine

Spraying glue and flocking my trees

Now A has her breakfast

Which is the guilty layer....

After that brew A headed out to do some shopping in town while I strolled was surprised to look into Room 13 and find that Bekir had completed the small tiling jobs in there before they left; I had thought this would roll over into Monday. The fog of the morning had already burned off by the time A left so I pulled a table and chairs outside and set myself up for some modeling time later. First of all I cooked up some scrambled eggs and was sat outside grinning to myself and eating it when A got home. What a lovely place to have breakfast. After this I sat at my desk and was jumped on by the puppies who wanted to sleep in the sun as well. I shifted them after a while and went back outside where I sat and attached all the flock on all the trees I have been making. I had this done before A was hungry and then she joined me outside with her own breakfast. While we were both sat there relaxing we noticed an egg sat on the grass by the green building that must just have been laid. While there were chickens and ducks around near it closer inspection revealed it to be a duck egg.

The owl sat on top of the Green Building

Its mate on top of our house

Beautiful new plant

A little bee that is totally covered in pollen

A big Bumble Bee getting involved

A had gone into the fenced garden while I sat and finished my brew sat at the table when I looked up and saw an owl on the chimney on the Green Building. I quickly grabbed my camera, got some photographs, called her over to see and then went to get the better zoom for a closer picture. Unfortunately just as I was going on to the balcony it flew off. A had spotted that there was another one, however, so I ran round the back of the house and climbed onto the mound from where I was able to get some more pictures of the second bird sat on the house chimney. We hear these all the time, and see them quite a lot, but never have a camera to hand. Following on with the wildlife theme the lovely flowering willows that A has bought are really attracting the bees. They are also beautiful. When I brought them in that evening a big bumble bee hitched a ride and we had some trouble encouraging it out through an open window. It's wonderful to have the bees back.

Bruichladdich 18 year old; such a lovely dram

We were out that evening to watch a band in town and I did take a video but because I forgot my camera it is not very good with the sound on the phone. It was lovely to see our friend, and also see Venko and his wife and the bassist from his band, and I ended up being asked to DJ while the band took a rest. This just involved YouTube and a single channel mixer but I had fun. When we got home I carefully selected a very nice bottle of whisky and poured a dram to savour. This was in memory of a very good friend of ours who had died that morning after fighting cancer for several years. It was a sad moment but also a lovely one as I thought about my memories of him and what a superb person he was. You can see that it wasn't a time of moping by the video of the puppies fighting over the ring.

For Dragon

I think that I was joined in this drink by a few people around the world; he was much loved and for good reason.

A looking like a super model

Dressed for fighting

The Other Brother with his lovely wife

The beautiful wedding party

The stunning room

These flowers were on our table

Neja running around keeping everything organised

And so we come to Sunday and the wedding day. It was another absolutely glorious morning which we spent pottering around a little before getting ourselves ready for the wedding. This involved me digging my suit out of storage and A deciding on a dress. That decision was quite easy as she only had one dress that she wanted to wear. We were giving the Little Lady and Usmivka a lift down so swung past and collected them both and arrived at the venue nice and early. It was glorious so we sat outside and waited and before long we heard the beeping of horns as the cavalcade approached. We were beckoned over the The Other Brother to get pictures of him with his wife, and then I stole some snaps of the wedding party before being waved away into the room. And what a room. It was stunning! We shook hands with the greeting party, met Neja's wife, and then were shown to our table by the man himself who was rushing around like a loon trying to stay on top of all the arrivals and ensure people sat in the correct place.

The Granddaughter with the Little Lady

Usmivka with the two grandchildren

This is why we call him "Smiley"

The ceremonial bread is shared by the couple

Down the hatch in one, then the glasses were discarded over their heads

The first dance

The Other Brother and his wife join the first dance

A sat watching and having a great time

The Bride's sister with Neja

A beautiful fancy gift, smelling of lavender

A joins the Bride on the dance floor

Money getting pinned to the happy couple

Something made the Groom laugh

Concentration as the cake is cut

A lovely slice of cake for me

Another lovely solo dance

Busting a move

A dancing with Neja

We were sat on a table with Usmivka, the Little Lady, the Special One and the two grandkids, and also two people who we didn't know. Everyone was very happy and the music was playing while we were eating our opening salads and I was drinking water. A had a beer and Usmivka had a huge vodka which he enjoyed a lot. After a little while the bride and groom arrived, walking in to applause and followed by the Other Brother and his wife, who were the guests of honour. I took loads of pictures, and a fair few videos, which you can see above which captures most of the day. The one thing I did miss that I was after the champagne was quaffed (see the video) they threw the glasses over their heads to smash behind them. I was really gutted to miss out on this. It was such a lovely afternoon and to see how happy the couple were, how much dancing there was (and it barely stopped all afternoon) and for A to go up and have a dance with the bride.

There are a LOT of photographs there but it truly was a wonderful occasion and I had to keep snapping pictures. We headed home about 4pm or so and both of us were whacked; I fell asleep on the lazy boy and slept for two hours and A found me like that and lay down on the sofa and also passed out. We had eaten so much food that we were not hungry in the slightest but towards the end of the night I did have a snack and so did A. It was a superb way to spend the weekend.

So there you are; I've been very busy today so this update has taken all day to write; I'll be back sooner I think with another post as things are speeding up here quite a lot.

Thanks for reading, if you even got this far.

Spring has sprung

As I sit typing this update we have Sally working in the lounge to finish off the railing around the staircase and Bekir working with Yulhan to finish off Room 13; this is a super awesome thing and we are both very excited to have them back. There is a short list of "must haves" to be done and then further work will very much depend on me getting work. For now, however, it's lovely to have activity again.

The three puppies on the top bank

Rambo trotting back over to me

A beautiful flower on the top bank

Louise sniffing around the fire pile

All set up for some hobby time

Gundabad Berserkers ready for some colour

View from the painting station

Louise having a look at what I'm doing

However that is now; it's been a week since the last update so let's take ourselves back on last Tuesday and after I published the blog post. It was a lovely day, warm and sunny, and we took the puppies up onto the back bank again to throw their toys and let them have some fun; it's so good that we are doing this more as even though we haven't been for as many walks as I was planning it has meant that we all get exercise and have fun together. Louise, as per usual, was only involved in the toys up to a point and spent a fair amount of time sniffing out the area, including clambering onto the bonfire which is still there from last year. I decided to enjoy the sunshine a little more and combine it with my hobbying and so I took some models out and sat and put some paint on them while the sun beat down. I actually found that it was too hot as the paint dried on the pallet. Louise was very interested in what I was doing but after about an hour or so I went inside as the wind was picking up and the shadow was encroaching.

Sun rise on Wednesday morning

Some of the jams and chutneys

Getting the patio furniture cleaned up for summer

Wednesday dawned fine and clear and this early promise was born out through the day. I had a small list of things to get done, the first task was to go through a big box of old preserves and jams I made a couple of years ago and clean them all up, remove any "bad" ones, and relabel any that had been rat-attacked and had the labels chewed off. It didn't take all that long and now we have three boxes of good cleaned up chutneys and jams and I can go back to eating them again. I've had Pear Preserve with yogurt gifted us by the Little Lady over my cereal all week and it has been lovely. A, for her part, had no work in first thing so she pulled the chairs out to carry on renovating them for use this year. They had got into a very bad condition having been left outside into the snow (my fault - I kept forgetting to pull them inside) so she got the sander and cleaned them all up. It really was lovely weather for working outside and even better weather for relaxing in the sun. The neighbours had a delivery of hay arrive while we were relaxing with a brew so I put my boots on and went to help out and it was a good thing I did as the bales were huge and they actually needed my help to get them in; it was wonderful to be so useful for them.

Putting up shelves in the gardening room

One wall done

The end of our lunch time and all the puppies are hungry

A pretty good temperature for 22nd Feb

Thelma loves her toy

Sisters relaxing together

My second job of the day was to get into the gardening room and begin tidying it up; A had picked up some brackets so I could put some shelving up. We had saved some wood from an old unit that had fallen apart and I was going to use that for these shelves. I must have been feeling energetic as I finished one wall in the afternoon and this despite the new drill playing up. The chuck is starting to slip and so I ended up using the new drill, with it's more variable speed control, to begin all the guide holes and then my dad's old drill, older than me (I think), to finish them all off. I was pretty tired by the end of this job. I did have a glass of fresh milk also gifted us by the Little Lady and that was superb. We took a break for lunch outside and sat in the sun round the corner at my "painting station" which is a real sun trap. A put the thermometer out to check out how hot it was in the sun and it read 54 degrees! Of course one cannot be outside without playing wtih the puppies and Thelma had a good time with her hoop, and on the sand pit.

Glowing coals from the night before

An attempt to rekindle the fire. It failed.

Shitty neck attempt

Fighting over a stick

She did not want me to rest

While it has been lovely weather for the most part during the days it is still cold enough for a fire at the bookends of the day. I came down on Thursday morning to light the fire and found that the embers were still glowing away. I did make an attempt to use them but eventually gave up and used a firelighter; it would have caught I'm sure just not quick enough for me. True to form the day turned out to be gorgeous however I really was not on form. I took one of the recliners down onto the front lawn to have a rest but was disturbed so much by the puppies (mostly Rambo who kept bashing me with his tail) that eventually I gave up on that idea. The girls were having such a great time and playing loads together; Thelma would find a stick and then sit happily chewing it then Louise would notice, steal it, run off with it, eventually get to keep it and then Thelma would find another stick and rinse, repeat. So funny to watch and they were tearing around the garden after each other. I got called over for coffee with the neighbours at one point which was lovely. In the afternoon I was trying to watch a YouTube video when I realised I'd been sleepnig sat up for at least the previous five minutes so I took myself off to bed and slept through until about 6pm. I felt like I could have slept all the way until the next morning but got up to eat something. It was not a late night for me that night either.

The sun rises behind clouds

She finally succeeded

A sewing, with some "help"

See how helpful Louise is being

Rocks for a rockery

It's back to salad season

Friday was a cloudier start with the wind that had begun the afternoon before really whipping across the land. Fortunately I was feeling a lot better and had the energy to get back into the Gardening Room and put up some more shelves. Louise, meanwhile, was outside and finally managed to get "shitty neck" again; I was cheering and A was getting ready to clean her up. The wind really was quite strong and while A did manage to get some sewing done on the cover for the hanging chair this was after attempting to work on the chairs for the patio furniture and having to give up as it was just too gusty. Louise made her best job of "helping" by sitting on the fabric and prevent A from being able to move it easily; she's a helpful little puppy. After my brief trip into town for post I loaded Thomas up with white rocks for us to take to Chaz and Ivan on Saturday for their rockery. That evening we went out for a meal at our favourite restaurant and it was really lovely; we'd not been for a few weeks so it was good to get it back.

Thelma is playful, Louise isn't so sure

Super breafkast for the morning after

We were up and out on Saturday at about 9am and drove very carefully (due to the weight of rock in the back of Thomas) to our friend's house. It was lunch time when we arrived and miserable and it never brightened up at all which meant that one of the reasons for going, to take pictures of the hotel for them, never happened all weekend. After a trip into town we chilled out then went to the bar then came back for some lovely food with one of their local friends joining us; the puppies were most happy about this as the kid loves them and played with them continually. I headed to bed relatively early as I was exhausted but the others sat up and A was rather delicate the next morning. The sing-song from the girls probably didn't help but it made us laugh. We drove back rather faster than we had gone and the rest of Sunday was a washout; there wasn't even a roast cooked.

A chopping up all the wood

Playing in the dust storm

Bekir getting stuck in with the plumbing in Room 13

Yulhan mixing up cement

The drier up in the kitchen

Gardening tools nice and tidy

The best bit about Sunday was receiving a phone call from Bekir to say that he was able to come back and work for us. Monday morning the alarm was set much earlier and A went out to collect them, returning with Bekir and Yulhan, the same guy we had previously. We'd be seeing Sally on the Tuesday, it seemed. A was on a mission yesterday and she managed to cut all the remaining wood up into firewood so we now have a relatively clear wood room. The puppies were in attendance as usual, getting covered in sawdust and sniffing around for bits to chew. I wasn't idle; I got both my jobs done early; first of all putting hooks up in the Gardening Room for the tools (I ran out of hooks though and I've just realised that, having been to the shop just now, I forgot to pick more up. Oooops) and then putting the new internal drier up in the kitchen. There's still a little to do on this to secure the laths properly but it's up and works and seems secure.

Thelma digging up a mole hill

She found the tunnel

Louise joins in

Her nose is covered in soil

Sweetcorn starting to show

Courgette seedling

Cleaning up the windowledge

Other than that it was another beautiful day. We were out in the garden a bit and laughed at Thelma who has found a mole hill, dug down to the tunnel, and was busily digging along it to try and get to the mole. Which reminds me they finally did something useful last week; I found a mouse and they managed to catch and kill it! A first solo kill. Here's to many more. Anyway, she was digging and digging and we had a bit of trouble getting her to stop. The reason for us being out was to get the seed trays under glass for during the day and, very excitingly, we have green showing. It's even better today but you'll have to wait to see those pictures until the next update. Upstairs progress was good with the plumbing in for the boiler and cement poured around the windows. They even got to doing some plastering on the ceiling. We had a bit of trouble with the internet in the afternoon so had a technician out and found that the damage done a couple of years ago to the cable coming into the house had finally broken through and destroyed the signal. Fortunately this is a good thing as we had far too much cable anyway so now it's been trimmed and is the perfect length.

So there it is; I've already got lots of pictures for the next update, which may arrive sooner than they have been recently as we start to get back into more progress around the place. I'll see how I feel. Thanks for reading.