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.

Review 2008

Well as the end of the year draws near it's time to review what progress has been made over the last year, and also what has gone wrong.

In January we finally finished decorating the front room which we are calling the library, and the permission came through from the town hall to enable us to put a roof on the old water tank which we are going to turn into a bathroom. Then in February we got the builders in and in 3 days they had the roof on and finished. Meanwhile we got started on the dining room inside which up to this point has just been bear concrete walls. On the outside the mild weather meant that we could finish the steps and ramp down the side of the house. March saw a trip back to the UK to see Helen's grandson Theo. This trip was not as relaxing as I would have liked due to flight delays and missing bags. Also in March we had a scare as Helen fell from one terrace to another requiring a trip to the hospital for an x-ray on suspected broken ribs. Luckily she was OK just badly bruised. April saw work on the area for the water tanks as part of the preparation for the permanent drainage systems.

In May the doorway was converted into a window and the plastering of the walls and ceiling in the dinning room continued. Then in June the first part of the drains went in and the dinning room got painted and woodwork varnished. Then in July the miracle happened we finally got indoor plumbing and the tiles went down in the dining room. Which soon lead in August after a trip to Tenerife to the temporary kitchen going in and finally after 18 months I had a gas cooker with more than 2 rings and sink where the water went somewhere when you pulled the plug out this now means that work can start on the old kitchen which needs the old work tops demolishing and the drainage putting in and also the drainage for the bathroom needs to run through there. Since then it has been crazy I have gone from last year of only having 1 hour of teaching outside of school to having to turn people away as I don't have any more time to give classes. It has not been helped by having a bad head cold which refuses to go away, November and December have also been very cold and damp which has not made things easier. But at the moment the sun is shining.

Recently we have been demolishing the old kitchen. which included a large concrete chimney over what was the old fireplace. Hitting this with a large hammer enabled Helen to get rid of some of her frustrations. All that is left is a very thick concrete beam which goes form wall to wall and will have to be gut out with the angle grinder.

The only bad thing of real note is the continued problems with the car. We have had to have the clutch cable replaced, the ventilation fan is on the blink and I have just been given a price of nearly 400€ to replace it. Without the fan you get a smell of petrol into the car so it has to be replaced soon. The car still has wear on the front tires due to the corners here. And to top it all she still has the intermittent problem where she over revs at idle and despite us cleaning everything it is still happening so I will have to take the car into the workshop early next year and see if they can sort it out.

Finaly We Have a New Room

The Library is now finished (OK there are still a few things to do, the odd fitted cupboard etc but it is usable). For the next few weeks it will be the temporary dining and computer room while we are working on the dinning room and turning it into the temporary kitchen so that we can actually start work on the kitchen.. Complicated isn't it..
We have to get it sorted out for the middle of Feb as One of the kids is due out to stay for a week and he will need somewhere to sleep.
Work has also been progressing on the steps and ramp (though the ramp is starting to look like a minor road). I would like to get the steps and ramp all done in the next few weeks, It would be nice to just be able to tick it of the list of things that we are doing.

The end of a hard but good year

Well we almost finished the room for the end of the year. all the painting is done, and the lighting is up but we just did not get the floor finished. it needs one last coat of varnish. But it is a very good job, just look at the before and after pic:
Not bad..
This time last year we were in London watching the fireworks from the back door of the Streatham flat and wondering were we would be in a year. Well here we are living in a house in La Palma, I don't thing we ever believed that we could do it. OK, the place is bit of a dump but it is improving and by the end of this year we may even have an inside bathroom and a kitchen that is not from the middle ages. But this is our place and in a strange way it is home. My only hope is that we can make a go of things here. This new year will tell. May it be a good one for us here and for you all out there.

A Happy New Year
to all you out there in the world.

T'was the night before the night before Christmas

And we are in bed listening to the radio, having spent the day working on the house, we got the ceiling painted and all the wood work tapaporoed (that's the first coat of varnish), and all the work on that walls is done... Tomorrow is the day to clean the house (Doing all the sanding of walls creates a lot of very fine dust that is covering everything in the house) and cook a cake... Then it is time for a day off, no work on the house for us, on Christmas day, we will be spending most of the day with our friend Sheila and her family. The plan for the day is to wake up (well we have to do that) and have Breakfast in bed (Normal Christmas breakfast of Bacon sandwiches), then its present time... After that it's get up and go have lunch on the beach (I hope that its not raining), Why - Becuse we can. And finally arrive at Sheilas for the rest of the day and a Very nice Christmas dinner.
So all I have to say now is to wish:

A Very Merry Christmas to all you out there

Well Plastered

Something finished at last .. All the plaster (Render) is done on the ceiling. Looks good!Now all we have to do is clean the rafters, paint the ceiling, finish patching the walls, clean all the wood work, varnish it, paint the walls, and do the floor. And we want to get that done before Christmas!!!! It may get done this year though.

Geeko Rescue Service

Hi All. Well the the room is progressing very well, we are hopefully that it will be mostly done for Christmas but it may not be quite finished until the new year. We have got the first coat of plaster (render) on the ceiling and in doing that I have so far had to rescue 3 Geekos, one from under the wood before putting the render on, I just don't like the idea of entombing them under the render.
Geekos are quite little lizards that walk across your ceiling and scare the living daylights out of you with there laughing (their calls sound just like someone violently laughing).

The Rain Has arived

Last week the first rain of winter arrived here in La Palma, not to heavy, only about an inch a day or so but it does mean that the place has started to sprout, ( this should have happened about a month ago but at least it is here now). The funny thing is that it is December and the place is starting to look very green like spring. The seasons are slightly messed up here..... The other thing is that it is Cold (OK only around 17 Deg C), time to get the jumpers out...
On the House front things are moving along, the walls are mostly done in the front room and so is most of the wood stripped, now it is time for the ceiling .... We hope to have the room done for Christmas.
The garden is going OK, We have Collies, Cabbage, Potatoes, carrots etc all growing well. Repairs to the retaining walls of the terraces are OK.. but on hold until we have a few dry days to poor some concrete.
I have also been working to get the second solar power panel up, This requires the construction of two junction boxes with copper bus bars and cables to connect these to the panels, should have these all done by the end of the week.
Thinking back on what we have done on the house and have still to do I have realised that it may almost have been quicker to start from scratch and build a new house . When we finished we will have replaced or put in all the services for the place and that is something I have never done before - not from scratch (OK I did rewire a house in the UK completely for a friend once)...
I do wonder if we will get this place done.... or when we do how long it will take ... But we do do a good job...

Plough the Fields and Scatter

Although we have not blogged for a few weeks we have not been shirking the work. We have done two weekends on the steps and have what is starting to resemble a ramp....see below: Mind you we have another 10 meters to go to get it all finished.
Inside the house things are moving along as well, The entertainment room is mostly finished and working, so we have a nice place to sit of an evening if it is only on two sun loungers - must look at getting a settee one of these days but are waiting till we have the door way cut for the bathroom. We have started on the front room on that side of the house, designated "the Library" or the guest bedroom. All the old paint has been scraped off the walls (along with some of the plaster) and most of one wall filed. slow going but it is progress especially now Theresa is at work 4 mornings a week.
I had a go at making jam this week end - It was all I could think of doing with the small amount of Grapes we were able to heaviest, 90% of the crop was cooked on the vine by a very hot spell a few weeks ago, most of the grapes ended up looking like raisins. The Jam ended up OK but the first try did not set so had to boiled it all again and add the juice of a lemon.. and that seemed to work. Next it will be having a go at Marmalade with all the Oranges.
Today we finally got started on preparing the ground for the winter crop, the growing seasons seem to be reversed here, manly due to rain, it manly rains in the winter so unless you can water during the summer you grow in the winter. An hours struggling with the rotavater and we have some very nice ground ready for potatoes etc.Just a note to say the Tabby (our cat from the UK) is having a great time here. Here she is hiding up the vine:

Step by Step

We went to the town hall on Friday to finally pick up the works license for the steps out the front of the house. This is from the request we put in back in May and were told that it would be ready in 3 weeks. As we have found they have a special type of week here that has 30 days. But we now have the piece of paper that says we can work on the steps, and having paid 600 € bail we can now start work again.
The paperwork for the bathroom isn't ready yet. The woman at the council said it would be about 2 weeks so it should be ready some time in December.
The work has also started on decorating the spare bedroom / library which means the dust will start to fly everywhere, but at least this time we can tape some plastic over the doorway which should reduce it down a bit.