Dress rehearsal

Thursday 17 February 2011

Today is my 49th birthday.  Last night was the dress rehearsal of the pantomime in which I play a butch yacht-mechanic version of Snow White.  Those two sentences seem strange together - at my age, I should know better!

Tonight is a joint birthday party for me and Blind Bill up at (other) Bill's Bar in Paleokatuna.  Dave has made Chilli.

St Valentine's Day

Monday 14 February 2011

 We had a busy morning with errands in Nidri, and then home to make a casserole, before we packed our sleeping bag and drove up to the land.  Dave then got up on the roof and fitted the panels, with my intermittent help. 

In between, I set up this boat solar water heater - even if it doesn't get very warm (it's overcast and chilly today), easily accessible water is much easier for washing hands and rinsing mugs, etc.

I also started creating a little dry-stone terrace to level the land for about a metre and a half from the east side of the shed.  This is where we'll build a platform for the solar water heater.  Dave is still trying to decide whether the platform will be metal or wood.  Metal is cheap and strong, wood is easier to work. 

I enjoyed this little job, despite the backache - it involved scrounging around the site looking for largish stones.  There's quite a few around a section of the back wall that has collapsed, just past pooh corner.  The stones then had to be arranged firmly on the ground, where they'll jam together to hold in the soil.  I also made a little stone circle to mark where the lemon tree will be planted - and where the shower and laundry drainage will go.

And then it was late and the sky was darkening, so we lit the stove and put the casserole on to warm up, opened the wine and lit the tea-lights.

Later we inflated the mattress, and only just squeezed it into the available space between the door and the loo (still unused, luckily, as we had our heads up next to it).  When we went out to pee in the compost the stars were clear and bright, and my little white stone walls marked the pathways very clearly.

This is a wobbly slow exposure photo of the stove and tea-lights. 

The shed was as warm as a sauna, we had to keep the door and window open.  In the morning it was still warm compared to the outside air.  Excellent insulation.  The day dawned sunny, so we put the sofa up against the outside of the south wall of the shed and ate porridge in the sunshine.

Trying for the telephone

Sunday 13 February 2011

Nothing more until the weekend, except a trip to Lefkas town to see if the telephone people will supply a land line.  The girl in the OTE shop (Greece's BT) was very helpful and took details about changing our address - she wanted a date for this, so we plumped for April 1st - an auspicious date, and I hope we'll be ready for it.  I gave her a map of the location, and they must have found it because I got a phone call the next day.


'Sarra Maray?  You want telephone from OTE?'
- 'Yes please'
'You have electric'
- 'Um, no'
'Telephone no possible, sorry'
- 'Oh'
'You want internet or telephone?'
- 'Internet, please'
'Ok, we make budget, you want to go ahead?'
- 'Can I decide when you've made the budget?'
'OK, I ring back'

While we were there we also took Constantine the money, which had eventually arrived from the UK, to process the plans, and called in on Dieter to see if our equipment had arrived.

Saturdays are only half days, as pantomime rehearsals start at 2pm, so we took the opportunity to go into Lefkas town again in the morning and buy the solar water heater and the rainwater storage drum.  We need the water drum in order to get the height of the platform to hold the water heater, as they will be stacked one above the other on the east side, with the solar heater facing south.  Both these will be delivered next week.

Late on Saturday night, after a particularly scarey panto rehearsal (not long now - first night is 22 Feb), Dieter delivered the remaining two solar panels.  We had already picked up the inverter, regulator, wires and connectors, so we were ready to go.

So on Sunday Dave started fitting brackets to the panels and connectors to the wires.  I took a few location shots around the site, as I haven't done so for a while, and then got on with tidying up.  We've decided to spend our first night on the land, and thought that Valentine's Day would be an easy anniversary to remember.  We'll only be camping out - we still have only a standpipe of cold water and no power, but it's a silly romantic thing to do, so we'll do it.  The shed looks vast in these photos - it's deceptive: when it's tidy there's some space, but not as much as it looks.

Bird houses and people houses

Tuesday 8 February 2011

We went up to Goat Bottom on Tuesday after work, just planning to sit over a cup of tea, but as we watched the little birds dashing around making nests for springtime, Dave couldn't resist giving them a helping hand, and rustled up a quick bird box.  

 The next day when we got up, we found they were pouring concrete next door - this is the view from our kitchen window: now do you appreciate just how close it all is?

Fitting the window

Saturday 5 February 2011

We finished the week in the boatyard then took the weekend to get on with the shed. 

Blind Bill delivered the window he'd made us on Saturday, so Dave fitted it - planing it to fit a little too vigorously, and doing a bit of damage to Bill's lovely woodwork (so I touched it up with wood stain and we'll hope he doesn't notice).

I got on the super-ladder and painted the east side.  It was very hard work - because we'd fitted the t&g inside out there were two extra grooves in each plank, each about 2mm square in cross-section.  This meant forcing the thick sticky woodstain into these grooves, which really slowed the job down and made my wrists ache.  No wonder Dave spent so long getting the window just right!

The window in situ.  Very fine.

Sunday was more painting, while Dave did more corner trims.  However, we discovered that if we thinned the stain down (it's water-based) it covered much more easily as it was less like toffee.  Tho' still toffee coloured.  The shed's gone orange.

Sunday evening we took one of our periodic strolls around the demesne, and found this surprising little plant.  Nice purply-blue flowers rising out of blobby spiky leaves.  You couldn't make 'em up.

Mitre joints

Tuesday 1 February 2011

At 4.30 we finished in the boatyard and shot up to Goat Bottom to paint preservative at the corners and put up the corner beading to give our shed a finished off look (and keep rain out of the cut ends and exposed corners).

We've done a pretty poor job of mitring (mitre-ing?) our corners so far - partly because we needed a mitre block in a hurry and the local shop only had a very dodgy one with a saw that doesn't really cut.  It's been driving Dave mad.  We also had a tape measure with a wobbly fitting that makes a difference of up to 2 millimetres between measurements - far too large for a good mitre joint.  Anyway - we'd struggled with these obstacles for a while, and finally got it all together this time, creating these very fine joints around the door frame.  Smug grins from us both! 

Meanwhile, back at the apartment, the reinforcing bars have gone in on the build next door.

Little wooden house

Monday 31 January 2011

 We were so excited by the cladding coming together we couldn't resist another run to the woodyard on Monday morning with a hard day's work to follow, getting it finished off (repetitive strain notwithstanding). 

We even remembered to cut out holes for vents and for the plumbing and wiring.  We painted wood stain around the vent holes, pushed some left-over plastic tube from the toilet installation through, added mosquito mesh and then a louvred cover on the outside and a sliding open-close cover on the inside.  Smart, huh?

And that was it - done!  A proper little wooden house, just as the light was starting to go.

Sinks, logs & little people

Sunday 30 January 2011

We got a little more cladding done on the Friday, and then started early on Sunday.  After lunch Howard, Jacquie and the girls found us.

Howard looked at the work we'd done so far, and asked, 'Why have you put the tongue and groove on back to front?'  This finally answered the question we'd wondered about all along - which way round does it go?  We'd decided to do it one way inside, and then, in case that was wrong, the other way round, outside.  It turns out that the outside is wrong - and offers less water protection as a result.  Still, at least the memvrani is behind it.

Howard had promised us a couple of old sinks - nice big steel ones, either for the camper truck, or in the field kitchen - and these three amazing roundwood logs, Cypress, I think, which we will keep for the cottage as beams or uprights.

The girls found our carpentry pencils and requested paper.  We didn't have any, so we gave them offcuts to draw on the back of.  They produced these lovely illustrations which have now been incorporated into the shed cladding - in the narrow space by the side of the door.  I wish we'd asked them to draw on the front of the wood (our front - everyone else's back) - these would've been lovely if just visible under the preservative.

I especially like the little cottage in a field of enormous flowers, and the smiley cat face (Marvin - take note!).

Excuses

Yet another long break between updates.  Many apologies.  The weather has been mostly superb, so we've been very busy in the boatyard, as well as getting on with as much as we can on the land.  I've been rehearsing for the pantomime twice a week, as well as learning lines in between, and the blog has just slipped through the net.  Enough excuses, here's where things are at the moment.