Top Coat

Well after yesterdays exertions moving all that earth, today it was time for something a little lighter. There were a couple of areas that needed a further coat of paint, I had made sure that the area where the bookshelves were going had at least 2 coats, but the other side still had a few areas that had yet to have a second coat.

There that looks better with out the crack and the flaky paint

And this corner all neat and tidy

The book shelves in, the one against the window will move once we sort out the 12v power outlet.

The door out to the kitchen.

Now where is all this going to go?

And this lot too!!!

More Help From Our Friends

Today we have had Sheila and family over to help with things in the house, Sheila helped me move a book case, into the office (well I directed and Sheila moved books).

Carlos (Sheila's husband) moved soil outside to infill the lower patio. Carlos is great, you just give him a shovel and beer and he just keeps on moving soil…

Carlos with most of the pile moved.

We need to raise the level of the lower “patio” by about a meter at one end. I think Carlos and Theresa moved about 1.5 m³ and raised the level by around 20cm still a long way to go but a very good start.

And here is what they have done.

A big “thank you” to Sheila and Carlos from us,  for this help.

Patch and Paint

Before we could paint the office we needed to do a fair amount of patching, some of the walls and the ceiling were cracked, and had paint flaking off.  One place in particular was a patch of the ceiling where in the past we have had some water come in.

The bad patch on the ceiling.

Looks better with a little plaster.

After the plaster had dried it was time , to put on some paint, unfortunately the paint was a little old and had gone a bit thick, even mixing in a little water didn’t help to much. So the paint didn’t go very far, I managed to put one coat on the ceiling and about half the walls, before I ran out of paint.

Power to the Office!

The one problem with the new office is that it doesn’t have any power. The old bedroom only ever had 12v lights and we had never got round to putting in the mains power sockets. It was Ok to run the bedroom of an extension socket but running the stuff for the office wouldn’t be a good idea, so we have to put in some sockets.  So time to get out the hammer and chisel and get to work, I just hope there aren’t to many large rocks in these walls.

One done, two more to go.

Should be one at this end, OK back to work

Once the holes were cut out for the boxes, which had to be done carefully by hand so as not to make to much mess of the wall. Then it was time to break out the power tools. Awhile ago we brought a tool for the SDS drill which cuts a channel ready for conduit. This made short work of cutting the channels down to the floor, where we drilled through to down stairs where the power will be fed from.

All the cutting out done now, time to fit the boxes.

Once all the cutting and drilling was done it was time to put the boxes into the wall, This is done with plaster of Paris, which sets very quickly. To make sure the boxes for the sockets are level we use our wooden jig which holds the boxes in place while the plaster sets.

Boxes in, jig also makes sure that all boxes are in line.

and the one at the other end.

As we are moving things around we need to reroute a couple of the network connections, one of these is in the dining room but we can sneak a new conduit in through the back of the wall.

A connection sneaked through the back of the wall.

All the boxes fitted and ready for cement render.

Now it time to mix up a little cement to fill in the channels we cut for the conduit. Once done this will need a few days to dry before we can apply the final coat of plaster.

All done, now needs to dry.

How does the Garden Grow

I just thought I would post a few photos to show how things are doing in the garden. The leeks are doing well, should have some to eat in a month or so, The lettuces are coming a long well thought they seem to be very biter. A quick Google  and the answer is, they are getting to hot so need more shade… also putting them in the fridge for a day or so before eating will help.   We should have our first courgettes  soon. See the photo below.

Leeks, lettuces and courgettes.

 The main beds , still only toms at the back peppers in the middle and the roots under cover at the front.

The first of the summer cabbages are coming a long well and are ready to eat now although they are quite small at the moment .

Cabbages with aloe Vera in the background.

 Early carrots with the next batch of lettuce seedlings

And Now For The Office

Now that our bedroom has been moved we have an empty room (and a house full of stuff needing a home). So we need to do a quick change job on the old bed room and change it into an Office (it will also double as the spare bedroom when we have guests over).

We (Should I say Theresa) has given the room a good clean to get rid of all the muck (and mould), now all we have to do is add some power points, fill the cracks and paint. Once that is done we can move the shelves back in, put up some new ones (to keep stack and store tubs on) and then add make shift desks. Should be a synch in 5 days with one of us limited to directing and doing only small bits…..

South side of bedroom, now office.

North west corner of office

 South east corner showing door to kitchen (will be dinning room) and old blocked up doorway

Happy Birthday Helen, Lets Move to A New Bedroom!

For some time we have been thinking about moving our bedroom into what was meant to be the “Library”. We have been in the current bedroom since we moved in as it was the only room in the house that was a reasonable room. Now it is the only room that has not been redecorated, (excluding the kitchen and the new bathroom that are stopped for lack of funds).

So as Theresa is off for Easter we decided to move bedrooms and change our current bedroom into an Office/Spare bedroom. The only problem is that since I have had the heath problems I can not seem to do much so Theresa needs to do most of the work. I managed to move one of the shelving units full of books earlier this week And then could do nothing more.

But I had to help her today with all the cleaning and moving of furniture. What a nice way to spend my Birthday! But the room Does look nice.

The new bedroom

One other reason for the move is that the library had two windows one to the north and one to the east, both with very good views, wich makes the room very light and airy.

    View from the east window, with Rainbow.

The new bedroom is very nice but all the junk that was in the room before is now distributed around the house.

Where did all that stuff go…

 Well here are the books

Aah…. Here its all is, But how are we going to watch TV?

Now to start on the renovation work to turn the old bedroom into an office.

An Update

Well My blood pressure seems a little better, but since last Friday I seem to have developed a pain in my chest. It seems to be best to do little things like walk around the garden, do a little bit of weeding ect. but not much. staying in bed does not help much ether it seems to make things worse.

The doctor is sending me to see a NEFROLOGIA which I think is a kidney specialist. we will see how long it will be before we get an appointment and then how long it is before we actually see anyone.

Its still not very good….But better than it was.

One slightly amusing thing though, the last time I was at the doctors the nurse started to take my blood pressure and as she was inflating the cuff there was a loud bang from my arm. The bladder had busted, my pressure was not that high, it did result in all of us laughing including the Doctor… The last two times I had had my pressure taken I had said that it was high enough to break the meter, this time it did!

A Bad Week

I awoke at 1 am on Monday morning with my a pain in my chest like very bad muscle strain. I had to go to the loo and when I got back to bed I was not felling very good but thought that all I had done was strained something the day before with all the work we had done. But then I started to feel something like very energetic muscle twitches in my chest.

It is hard to explain what it felt like, I don’t know if you have felt those small movements that coincide with your heart beat, as if you can feel the blood pulsing through your veins (some times in your ear or on your leg). well this was like that but magnified 1000 times. Also it was not regular, there would be one beat and then a gap of a second or so and another two and then another gap. I just rolled over on to my front and tried to go back to sleep but the beats were so energetic that I felt as if I was being bounced out of bed each time.

I think I did sleep for a bit but after half an hour I had to get up and go to the loo again, and my chest still hurt… Finally I woke Theresa up, she just mumbled that I should go back to sleep, until I got her to listen to my heart and then she was up and awake and helping me up and to the local emergency centre about 20 km away.

We arrived an the staff got me in on the bed and took my blood pressure, it was something like 220/180 which is very bad after a few pills the pain in my chest started to dissolve.

About an hour later, an ecg and more pills, they said I could go home. The doctor did not think there was any problem with my heart but that I should go to my Doctor in the morning. So we went home.

Next morning we went to the Doctors my blood pressure was up again so I ended up with some pills and told to take it easy and go back on Thursday.

Well Thursday came around and our friend Sheila came over to accompany me to the doctors, I was feeling ok, and had been taking it easy. But when the nurse took my pressure she was not happy, so she tried the other arm. and then asked the doctor to take the pressure, it was back up it the very high level again something like 240/160. so it was more pills and then I was told to go straight to the hospital, we arrived at A&E about 1pm.

I think it was the shortest wait in A&E I have ever had, about 1 minute. I was taken in and plugged into a ECG and after off to a cubical where I was attached to several monitors, oxygen supply and a very large syringe of stuff… And there I staid for around 7 hours.

I think Theresa and Sheila expected them to keep me in over night but I was let out and told to get some meds from the pharmacy in Los Sauces in the morning.

Here is a chart of my blood pressure The last but one was after I had been in hospital for several hours

Well its Friday evening and things seem to be going ok, though the meds they gave me were not on the usual prescription so we had to pay full whack for them, around 50€ for a months supply I just hope that the Doc will put the next lot on a cheaper prescription!!!