Thursday 18th November

Beautiful day but the wind is getting up and the temperature is dropping.  I suppose I should head into Djebel and get myself a few cubits of wood so that I don't go cold but there again, if I go out and process the wood that is around I wouldn't feel the cold anyway.  I think it was just because I have sat still for two and a half hours with my Bulgarian lesson.  It's so difficult...it's the verbs, and the translation doesn't always follow since they make nouns out of verbs and verbs out of nouns and .....I should study more and I'll repeat that to myself several times a day.  It's getting a bit like school where you realise that you haven't done you're homework and you start to feel guilty.....get over it....and get down to it

I've had further deliveries today....my lovely avatar came round with five eggs one of which was still warm and my teacher delivered some of the cow that they had killed.  That is now in the slow cooker with onions, an Oxo, tomato puree and despite tempted to add a little wine, I'm informed that the sacrificial animal should be served without alcohol.............so I suppose I should have a drink before supper and after but not during.  Now I only thought it was for the poor of the village but I am dutifully informed that it is for friends and relation....I have reached a new status...  now to get in some wood and get the woodburner up and running....my feet are cold.

Thursday continued

So two men eventually arrived to fix my washing machine at 6.00 this evening.  One of them spun the drum and said normal, the other just sat in the chair in the hall and I reckon he was the driver.....pressed a few buttons, did a few tests and said that you have to have enough in the drum to spin it and that was about it.  I copied the receipt, nothing to pay since it is under warranty and there is water on the floor now that they have left...........I suppose it is pretty difficult for them me not understanding all the questions that they are putting to me but they couldn't get over the fact that I am out here without a man and that I don't have a dog....now what links the two I don't know but to them there is a significance.  I'm out here, I can leave both cars unlocked and I haven't had a radio go missing...try that in the UK...and in the summer I sleep with my bedroom door open and again, try that in the UK....and they ask why am I out here!!!

Let's see if the washing machine holds up but at least they know where the house is now...

LN...I'm off to my virtuous couch....slumber calls.

Friday 19th November

So the sun has just popped its little head over the mountains at 7.22 this morning but the view from my bed at silly o'clock just had to be captured.  Two cups of coffee later I'm ready to face the day and thinking about a real desk on the landing and not just a green picnic table and whether to try and convert the old kitchen table base or start from scratch which would probably be easier.  As you will see from the pickies that follow, it's a lovely calm morning and the mist is hanging on in there over the river but as the sun gets higher, we should be surrounded with mist and the mountains will disappear for a time until it is eventually burnt off.  I think there was a hint of frost overnight but the house maintains approx 18 degrees and that's not bad considering that the wood burner didn't get stoked up overnight, that to date there is no insulation in the loft and the outside of the house has yet to have its winter jacket applied.  So when Bekir and Sally (hopefully) return next week armed with a couple of heavies, it should be done in quicksticks.

Now for my morning pickies from silly o'clock and yes I did go out in PJ's to take some from the balcony....

Saturday 20th November

Once again I'm up at silly o'clock and once again I am seeing the sun taking shape behind the mountains.  Well I don't exactly mean taking shape, it hasn't change for eons but I wonder it it ever gets fed up of whizzing us all around.  I'm thinking this morning of the Egyptians....no wonder they worshipped it.  They had no need of it for central heating (unless you were in the desert and boy, did you need the sun in the morning) and they must have spent a small fortune on UV protection rubbing it gently into the camel ears.,,,,,not.....   Again worshiping something that you can see makes sense but then you get the others that were invented as an afterthought....and the stories about the weighing of the heart on passing kept most on the straight and narrow.  Maybe that's a good way to look at it and I wonder if the phrase .....weighing it all up....has some of that significance........now I think I should go back to bed after those pearls of wisdom

Yesterday I was on the balcony clearing off the cement that had splashed up onto the windows during the construction process....I had to remember not to step back to view my handywork....it's a long way down.

Off for coffee, check out my fire and boiler, breakfast and gardening....it looks like a promising day.

Saturday continued

Just thought I would add the fruits of yesterday's labour and the chocolate box view from the balcony and this morning's early start....

Saturday continued

It's a bit of a sad day in one way but not in another.  Star mush has been taken off to Turkey to stay with his daughter for the winter.  I hardly recognised him as he got in the taxi and I got the feeling that he was being frog marched.  It's a good thing....his little house is damp, he only uses the well for his water and he is not well in himself but for me, the independent soul has probably given in to the pressure.  I look forward to seeing him in the summer.  His daughter came round with the husband and told me that he was leaving.  We exchanged email addresses and I gave her my web address so that she can look at it from time to time.  We exchanged telephone numbers and I promised to phone should there be any problems but I did ask them to speak slowly, especially on the telephone....I'm a beginner at this lark.  The husband had not been inside the house so it was his turn for the guided tour....he loved it.  I waved them off as they left and I must admit there was a tear in my eye....I do hope he comes back in one way...he is such a character.

And so what did I get up to this afternoon.  I have the big daddy of bonfires and it has been going for about four hours, I've been digging up some rogue shrubs that don't have anything going for them and clearing out the old wood and the stone from the side of the other house.  I'm now in, about to light the wood burner, the mosque has just kicked off with the soulful chant and all is well with the world.  I'm tired and have cleared a lot of the rubbish from the garden....hopefully no silly o'clock for me tomorrow morning.  LN supper calls....and don't you just hate it when that happens...I've just posted....the bonfire is all aglow and the sky has turned a most dramatic orange with dark clouds intermingled....and I bet it wouldn't look half as good on the screen.....I'll leave it to your imaginations....LN

Sunday 21st November

Since someone or something has stolen the Greek mountains and every other one in sight, it had to be comfort food.  I can hardly see the bottom of my garden and I'm wondering if my bonfire that I raved about had anything to do with it

So into the fridge and there were two of the free-range eggs delivered warm by my avatar so it had to be 5 minute boiled eggs to show them at their full glory and that always reminds me of the joke, what can you do with a soldier that you can't do with a sailor.....dip them in your egg....(and I hear the groans).  So I made two slices of toast, boiled two eggs for the said five minutes and they were delicious.  Washed down with coffee and I am waiting for a glimmer of sun before I carry on with the patch that I was sorting yesterday.  I believe there is a slight glow from the bonfire and the woodburner stood up for itself well over night and a couple of sticks and four lumps of coal and hey presto....warmth in until there is warmth out.  I might even get through a couple of chapters of my latest read....John O'Farrell's....'An Utterly Impartial History of Britain'....or subtitled, '2000 years of Upper Class Idiots in Charge'.  Funny read with the potential of putting into chronological order all those kings that you had problems with at school.  Come on sun....I need to get on

Sunday continued

What a beautiful, beautiful day.  I had a beast of a shrub in the garden that I think was twinned with a banyan in Sydney in Australia and would the thing budge ...would it buggery....So I decided to have a bonfire underneath it and it is still going now but it also spurred me on to cleanse the parts of the garden otherwise untouched so armed with my giant secateurs....not for giants but for the 'big ones' I attacked that which had never been attacked for nigh on ten years.....and what a difference.  It was almost like a November day in England...slow to get started with the morning mist but then it changed somewhat as it hit 24 degrees and then it was nothing like November.  I came in at about three and made meatballs and with tomatoes, onions with a hint of chilli and a little of the red into the slow cooker they went and then out to carry on where I had left off.  The beautiful big moon came up at about five so I thought it was time that I packed up my tools and declared that light had stopped play.  It's close to six now and so, shower, and then pasta and the meatballs for supper.  

What a perfect day....

Monday 22nd November

Fog, fog and more fog as I set off this morning at 7.40 to start the day.  My men were waiting, they both had new work clothes clutched in their little bags and we discussed the leaving of Star Mush and we all thought it was a shame but his little house with its concrete roof was nor is no use to man nor beast when the weather gets rough and in his case, he was persuaded to get the hell out of it.  I can't imagine him holed up in a flat though, what's he going to do all day.

Well the men got changed and I said 'Chestito' which is the phrase for anyone having any thing new which went down well.  They were a little bit....having to get back into the swing even only one week away....but the balcony has been disrobed and it's still standing...yeh, yeh, yeh.....(after that popular song) and the concrete pillars from the other have been disrobed to make the drying process quicker.   The rest of it is in situ for the next ten days or so and then....all off.  The wood that has been removed is all stacked away for the winter and is earmarked for the other house, I have a pallet that came with the wood, outside the door and I was given instructions how to scrape the dirt off shoes before you get into the house.....Thanks, how long have I been telling you that

So at three this afternoon I mentioned that I wanted the old base from the kitchen table made into a table/desk for the top landing....plastic garden tables look OK in the garden at a push......but not on my upper landing.  Now the base never did pass for square since it was the first thing that I laid my hand to but now it's nearly there.  It has side supports and a middle cross piece and the top gets done tomorrow after we have been down to the builders yard and ordered the materials for the outside of the house.  They measured it up today and we have the list ready to go shopping in the morning.  Joy of joy, down to bread and water for the next few days.  

The wind turned a little chill today even after the fog had lifted and I found another polythene mine so a little bit more for me to do.  As if there's not enough making coffee for the lads.   I am dutifully informed by Crava Mush that there will be snow by the weekend....always was the one to deliver the good news after taking his cow for a walk.

Anyway, that's it for tonight..LN

Tuesday 23rd November

I have a desk at the top of the stairs on my landing, I have all the material ordered for work on the outside of the house and the loft insulation, I have three big holes where the men have removed the banked up earth to the north of the property and shame on me, not got pictures of any of it.  I think I was a bit too embarassed to go out as they packed up but I did tidy up all the tools that were left out from the manufacture of the table top.  The men had to take out two stone walls which were about two feet wide and remove lots of rubbish that I'm sure that Star Mush had dumped in the ten years that the property was empty and there was lots of stone that had fallen from the wall so there is a picture shoot scheduled for tomorrow morning but I bet I don't get a smile out of them.

As for my homework, I didn't do it and I admitted it straight out when my lady appeared.  The intention was to do it this morning but we didn't get back from Djebel until fifteen minutes before the lesson started and I had some toast instead.

As for the weather today....warm wind to start off with then suddenly the gentle breeze went to gale force with lashings of rain and thunder and lightening then the wind dropped but the warm breeze changed into a cold one.  You could say a day of variables but the only thing missing was the sun in the day and the moon and stars tonight.  Feels mighty nippy to me so off to put another log on the fire and get some supper and it's got to be started from scratch since I forgot to load the slow cooker so best get on....LN and I promise some action shots tomorrow.