A visit from the family

All the work this year has been done, manly, so that the outside is safe for the arrival of one 14 month old. My grandson Theo. Well he arrived last week accompanied by his mum Sarah and Rachel and her boyfriend Brett. It was a bit of squash getting four extra bodies in the house but we made it and being able to all eat outside was a god send.

In the week that they were with us we spent every day out, as Sarah and Rachel had lived here for a few years when they were young, they wanted to see places that they remebered from before.

One of the trips was a visit to the Roque del Munchacos and observatories

The obligatory stop for photos

Sarah and Theo at the top of the mountain

Rachel up the mountain

Thanks to our friend Sheila and her husband we all had a tour of the Galileo telescope (Italian) and the Magic (Gama Ray telescope).

Everone in the car park for the Italian telescope.

One of the two Magic telescopes, guess who is visible reflected in the box

Yes thats us!

It was great to see the girls again and meet Brett for the first time. But for me it was very good to see my grandson. I last saw him when he was only one month old, He has grown a lot. I think that is one of the few drawbacks of living in here. you just don't see your family that much.

They seemed to enjoy there time here, but now they are gone we plain to have a few quite days before getting on with more work on the house.

And now water in the kitchin!

The final plumbing job under the kitchen floor is to lay the water pipes, cold feed from outside and a hot feed, wow hot and cold water in the kitchen.......!!!!

The original cold pipe arrives in the kitchen where the old sink was... half way up the wall and just ends in a tap. So we needed to remove the old tap and then connect the new piping, run it down the wall and across the floor to where the new sink will be. We are thinking to add a water filter under the sink so the feed to the bathroom and hot water heater does not connect directly to the cold feed.

Hot And Cold piping

Once all the piping was laid then had to insulate the hot water pipe . This is due to concrete sucking the heat out of the pipes. Well I have found this since we messed around with the hot feed to the current shower. I used squirty foam to insulate the pipes... as it is slightly simpler than the type that comes preformed.

Added insulation for the hot line - I love squirty foam.

And once the foam was set it was time to poor the final layer of concrete so that we have a new floor.... It does not need to be that great as it will be tiled in the end.

And now we have a floor again.....

The last bit of work is to connect the hot heater to the new cold feed. The pipes go up the wall, heading for the roof and the location of the future solar hot water heater, so it was just a mater of a longer connecting pipe and it was all done.

Hot water heater before new cold connection

And after