Quick Step

The funny thing is sometimes the work seems to go on and on but every now and then things take a sudden jump.

The steps are now up to a point and we have started to put the top on the cupboard at the back of the steps.

And the painting of the east side of the house has moved on too, with both the walls and the window frames painted.

And we have made a start on the chimney, as we won’t be using this anymore with a real fire just as the vent exit for the extractor in the kitchen, it doesn’t need such a big opening, which lets in water when it rains. So with some cut bits of racillionies we are blocking it off except for a small gap at the top.

Busy Day

Today was another one of those days when we go round and work on half a dozen jobs at once.

A few more blocks go on to the steps, we are almost at the point of putting on the top of the cupboard to hold the watering valves.

And a little bit of concrete to make the base of a manhole to take the cables to various places on the lower patio.

Then using the rest of the cement just set in the top of the walls. And in the top of the photos you can see the rows of spuds that we have been putting in over the last few mornings, after we paid for someone to bring there machine in a rotivate the terrace as we haven’t fixed our machine yet.

Oblique shot showing the rows of spuds which should be ready about Christmas time.

Cleared out a levelled the corner by the font of the house ready to concrete the lower patio.

The window sill under the other window has had a few offcuts of tile and cement put in to bring it up to the right level for the tiles, then the paint touched up, once the tiles are on you won’t even notice.

We aren't the only ones working, our new German neighbours are having a lot of building work done to their house too.

And Tabby keeps an eye open for what Meep is up to while she lies in the shade.

Odds and Ends

One of the problems we have is that we have a large number of different jobs on the go at once so sometimes we end up doing half a dozen different jobs in one day, and today was one of those days.

First to tackle was some more blocks on the lower steps area.

On the back of the steps is going to be a little cupboard which will house the grey water valves and other stuff.

Next  just a little trim of the concrete under the window in the dining room so that we can put on some tiles to make a nice window sill. This is something we overlooked when we built the window in the first place.

Then just a few more bits of rendering on the vent hut

And there all jobs done for today.

Block up

Just a few blocks added here and there today.

First a few blocks go on to form the wall of the vent hut.

The another couple go on to bring the steps up a little, now this is ready to make the base of the small recess in the back of the steps which will house the valves for the watering.

A better photo of the wall that I mentioned earlier.

Window top

Once the sides of the window had dried next came the top. the top sticks out a little to push the water away and stop it seeping in through the window.

Then it was time to add a little more cement to the steps

A Week on the Tiles

Although the work on the house is progressing, I will not say that things have been going that well, I seem to be getting more and more uptight and grumpy, a day really goes by without me snapping at Theresa. After a rather tiring week of work finishing with a very late night grouting, the dining room was ready to become a temporary kitchen. Then a day of intense cleaning, to rid the house of construction dust and another day to move the fridge and washing machine in to the newly finished room and put up a false wall to stop dust from the work on the new kitchen and things are looking good.While doing the tiling I thought it would be good to fix the few tiles that had fallen off of the wall in the loo/shower, there were only about 8 or 10 tiles to put up and we had some spare tiles in the under croft (original 1950 or 60 tiles in a wooden crate). So I started removing the old tile cement so that the replacement ones would be at the same level that current ones are. removing the old cement was not to hard as it was quite loose but then the old tiles were not that well attached to the wall ether and stared fulling off.... in the end I hand to put around 30 tiles back on instead of around 10.
The other job that we have managed to get done is to finally have a proper path and steps to the loo so after a year we can now go to the loo without risking a broken ankle.

What does 2 cubic meters of Gravel look like?

What does 2 cubic meters of gravel look like? Well if you look at the photo below you can see.
This is Helen with her shovel moving the pile a bit so that we could get the car in after the lorry had been. In order to get the gravel delivered we talk to our friends Ann & David from La Casita over at the other end of the village and they then speak to Luis that delivery driver who then if he doesn't forget (which he has a habit of doing!) comes along with his small dumper truck and delivers sand, cement, gravel and what ever else you have ordered.

Why do we need so much sand and gravel? This is the second delivery we have had in the last few weeks. The reason we need so much is that while the weather has been fine for the last week or so and as it has been half term we have been working a lot on the steps and ramp out the front. This is now taking on such gigantic proportions that we have now named it "The Franceses Bypass"

A YES for the Roof and a Bad Back

YES we have finally got the permission for the roof on the water tank so now all we have to do is get the builder in, its going to cost €2000 just for the roof and to get the door cut in the wall but once that is done we can start work on converting it to a bathroom. The main problem will be running all the wast pipes. I have not found out where they have to end up yet! It's not like the UK where all you have to do is connect the pipes to the nearest main drain, Some ware near the old loo in the back garden is a very big home covered with concrete, and this is ware all the waste from the loo mysteriously disappears....!!!!
We have not been sitting around ether this week, the steps are progressing onward and upward, we only have one small step to do, it seems that all we are doing at the moment is poring concrete, and this is where the bad back comes in. Thursday It seems that while we were working on the steps Theresa pulled a mussel in her back and she has been in a lot of pain, but still manage to help me today to get another step cast.
I am hopping to get the steps finished next week, and then its just the 10m of ramp that needs doing, but a lot of that is just one large amount of concrete.
We also manage to get the first of the vines pruned, only the ones at the front of the house but as these are in the way of the work on the new roof, I felt that these needed to be done.

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.

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: