Ramblings from Spain

Its been a long time, but finally this week, I managed to sort out my internet access.

Between three Telefonica engineers who finally turned up, a dodgy installation and Simon being a clown, I was able to connect once again.

Here in Spain we suffer from the old BT problem of a monopoly situation, it is only Telefonica who can get you a phone line at home. It takes them 48hrs max to sign up and install a line for a new customer, but a simple transfer to a new address in the same village takes them 3 months! Anyway, in the end they ran out of excuses and the engineers turned up to get things done, and I ended up with a phone line and ADSL.

Which I went and broke.

I stuffed this all back in the wall and put the lid on, thinking all was hunky dory. Only to try connecting 2 days later and nothing would work. 3 hours of testing led me back to the box only to find two of the cables hanging out!

Anyway, on to more interesting things, seems like ages ago already, but on the 6th of December 2005, we became parents……!! More tomorrow.

So where are we with the house….?

Its been ages since I added anything here, so just a quick update. The good news is we have the finish line in site. The bad, its taking us ages to reach it!

But we are hoping to get in there very soon. They are finishing of the final bits and pieces, we have given them a list of all the details that need sorting.

In the meantime I along with a merry band of fools friends have been busy in the garden. We have managed to all but finish moving seven lorry-loads of top soil, which took some doing! I have a few odd pics, but its a shame I didn’t get any ‘before’ photos, no-one will believe us now! The grass seed has been put down, and is enjoying perfect conditions, so is coming along nicely.

As soon as I get some more time, hopefully at the weekend, I’ll get some more photos up of the garden, and once we have the interior cleaned and tidied up, some of that too.

Stay tuned!

The wooden casing to hold the roof is begun. During the week it becomes more ‘roof-like’ as the preparations are made for the structure to be laid out. During the latter half of week 10 the blocks and reinforcing are put into place and all is ready for the concrete to be laid early next week.

The days are getting longer here now, and we are excited to see progress once more! The window-sills have been fitted, and the rendering will be finished this week. Suddenly the house feels ‘bigger’!

Things have been pretty much stopped for the last month. We have had the first real hassle of the project, with some difficulties with prices of tiles. I won’t go into details, lets hope we can see some good progress again soon. In the meantime the plaster has been drying out nicely, despite some awful weather. We have also been out choosing flooring and doors, along with the the colour of the external rendering last week…

The plastering was completed during the last three weeks, and the difference is amazing. Having been away from the house for a couple of weeks during the Christmas holiday the change was dramatic. The house now feels incredibly real and almost finished! We have also been busy choosing bathroom tiles so that the decorating of the bathrooms can be started.

The last fornight has seen a lot of smaller details going on before the plastering work began towards the end of the week. The ‘pre-frames’ for the windows have been fitted, along with the finishing up of most of the plumbing. The outstanding bits and pieces of brickwork have been tidied up, such as the front of the chimney - we now have a working fireplace! The plastering is something to behold. From what I can gather without seeing them doing it, the huge container out the front holds the plaster as powder, which is pumped to a mixing machine, and the results ’sprayed’ on! Theory deduced from the results splashed everywhere! As you can imagine, it doesn’t take them long! Updates to follow….

As predicted the dividing walls have almost been completed upstairs. We asked to make use of the space over the kitchen so as not to waste it, almost doubling the size of the bathroom! This required the anchouring and welding of some RSJs which will support some concrete ‘planking’ which was also done this week.

The roof is finished for all but the chimnies, and the brickwork has continued to fly up. The two ’skins’ are all but finished downstairs, complete with the insulation. The downstairs distribution has also been completed, so we really have a good idea of the space of the rooms. The upstairs has also been started and won’t be far behind.

This week has seen the start of the tiles being laid on the roof, and the outer brickwork. Progress is quick, and the house again feels much nearer completion.