Strange

Friday 31 August 2012

Last night, we were sitting out in the Zone, watching a movie and having supper, and we saw a little white head go bobbing past down the field.  We stopped the movie and watched, and saw a seagull, walking across the land.  Strange, we thought.  It went down on to the site, and stood around.  I put out a tin of sardines for it, but the cats ate it.  Seagulls will normally chase anything else away, so it must've been traumatised or something.

Tonight is a 'blue moon', as in 'once in a blue moon'.  It means there is a full moon twice within one calendar moon.  I suppose we have to expect strange things to happen ...

George & Fillie stay another week

14 to 21 August 2012

Most of George's friends had gone home, so that only he and Fillie were still staying on the boat.  The boat had developed engine wiring trouble, so they were grounded for a few days, but at least we weren't in Italy and could sort it out.

We all went to a gig to see Dave and Rob play at the Red Tower Hotel a few miles north of Nidri, and George said he and Fillie never photograph well together.  One or the other always lets the photo down.  So I took up the challenge - what do you think?  This one looks okay:

Maybe not this one!

 Then there's me and George:

And me and Dave

Then, later in the week, we managed to get out in the boat together for an overnight trip to our favourite bay on Meganissey.  Look how useful a handy rock can be for boat mooring.

More about eggs

Megachuck has finally started laying, but only tiny eggs.  She may well be a chicken bred for meat rather than laying, given her size and tiny eggs.  The one on the left is from Astro or Notso (renamed from Stupid as she's been showing a lot of enterprise, especially in catfood-stealing), and the one on the right is Mega's.

A good day's clutch: two and a half eggs!

But then Mega must have decided under the tree just wasn't good enough.  I spent a day chasing her off our sofa on the decking before I realised this was where she had picked for nesting.  So we put a sheet over the sofa and watched what happened:

 

 A lot of fuss and bother later (and much tiptoe-ing around not to disturb her), and we were the proud new owners of ... a tiny egg.

 

 Here it is in close-up (in case you missed it in the pic above)

An Italian Job

Wednesday 8 August 2012

Just to remind you - we had been asked to come along on a trip to Italy and back by a family who own a share in one of the yachts Dave looks after through the winter.  They were keen to see Mount Etna, so the plan was to do a straight two-day crossing to Sicily from Lefkas town.  The weather was good, we had done loads of shopping, so everything was set.

Unfortunately, it didn't turn out as planned.

 Heading for Lefkas Bridge at 6.30 am.  Dave overjoyed to be going somewhere different for once!

 Clearing the Lefkas Channel, the sun rising ahead of us, before we turned west for Sicily

Rick and Alison, everyone upbeat and excited.

 Quarter to six that evening.  Plague ship.  The bucket gives it all away.  After ten hours non-stop seasickness in half the crew, the decision was taken to turn back, as - after 60 nautical miles - we were still nearer Lefkas than anywhere in Italy.  The sea wasn't very lumpy, but there was just enough swell on the beam to affect both kids, Alison and me.  Luckily for me, my lead time between quease and vomit is long enough to assimilate a seasick tablet, so I was pretty sprightly; unluckily for the others, theirs wasn't.

 Quarter past six, and as far as Dave was concerned, 20 hours non-stop sailing (and vomiting, for some) was all worthwhile when he caught this enormous Albacore (a tuna-type fish) 

View off the stern, heading east at sunset.  Bye-bye Italy.  Perhaps another time.  

We did most of the return trip in darkness, assisted miraculously by the moon which rose directly ahead of us after we passed the Lefkas light around midnight, and needed a mark to steer by.   We crept into Sivota at 2 am and executed a perfect stern-to mooring in whispers - Dave said afterwards he was so tired, it had to be good as he couldn't have done it more than once.  Also miraculously, there was a whole stretch of the quay, usually taken up by flotillas, completely empty, so we had an eight-boat space to aim for - never happens in August!

Next morning, I texted George, who was out on Tropi with seven friends from Liverpool including his girlfriend, Fillie, and he had also come into Sivota, so we met up for breakfast!  They asked if we knew where they could buy fish for supper, so we gave them most of the Albacore, and still had enough for two meals ourselves.

Unexpected developments

Tuesday 7 August 2012

We woke up bright and early, with lots to do.  We were spending Tuesday night on board the yacht we were helping take to Sicily, as we wanted to get an early start on Wednesday from Lefkas town.  So there was packing and organising to do.  Lucky we were up, as it happened, as Takis and two diggers arrived and were working by 8.30am.

 The first bucketful goes in the 'living room' against the glow of sunrise.

 Takis (Constantine the architect's foreman) helping remove remaining rebar stakes from site.

 An essential component - everyone having a good shout about what they should be doing.

 Takis watering the earth to help it compact.

 Bring on the 'Bobcat'.  We like these little diggers.  Want one!

 Bobcat hard at work compacting and leveling.

 Visualise the big yellow digger scooping and revolving; the Bobcat oscillating and Takis watering - for a moment it looked like a Victorian clockwork toy, with everything in motion at once.

 The drop from the old ground level is about 2 metres, so we asked for a scoop about 1.5 metres back and one metre deep to be taken out of it.  We can eventually terrace this into a raised garden, rather than having to fence it off as a drop.  The extra earth came in handy for filling in around the foundations, too.

Well, we couldn't leave, not with all this going on.  And, as ever, it was lucky we were there - to get things done the way we wanted them.  The work was all finished by noon, and we now had an earth-filled foundation, ground level brought up to the top of the footing all round, a step for terracing cut out of the long drop and a ramp down to the site.  An eventful morning.  Next stop - Sicily!

Wheelbarrows

Saturday 4 August 2012

We own a wheelbarrow and three wheels for it, all of which go flat just when you've pumped them up, wheeled the barrow to where you want to work, and put the first shovel-full in.  Dave decided to tackle this problem on Saturday, but after hours of heat, flies and frustration, we still had three flat wheels.  It's a Greek thing.

What next?

Friday 3 August 2012

After a week of emergency boat engine fixing, for the boats Dave looks after, we managed to finish clearing up the site just in time for a visit from Constantine.  He brought a foreman, Takis, to see the job, and to supervise when he wasn't available.  We liked Takis.  He's tall and rangy, and walked around the site in bare feet.  At least I'd cleared up all the wood with nails sticking out.

The plan is to get a digger and refil the structure with the excavated earth.  Dave and I had agreed what we wanted underfloor, so I put it on a plan and we explained it all to Constantine and Takis.

The bedroom (top) and the living space (bottom right) want earth floors - so we fill up with soil to 25 cm from the top, well tamped down, then we will get a layer of gravel and then successively fine graded soil which is then oiled with linseed oil and waxed.  Apparently it ends up warm and comfortable and tough.

The utilities, from bottom left through the middle - entry, bathroom, linen store, pantry, kitchen - will be stone flagged, so the soil needs to be infilled up to the top of the concrete, and then gravel and flags laid to bring the surface up to the top of the hardwood beam to be laid along the top of the concree plinth.

And finally, my little root cellar to be left empty, for more concrete to be poured in the foundation.

We are both off on a skippering trip from Wednesday, so it may well be done without us here.  Slightly worrying - but what could possibly go wrong?

Of chickens and eggs

Monday/Tuesday 30 & 31 July 2012

Well, we were still wondering if the chickens were ever going to be more than just entertainment, and they were obviously feeling a little guilty themselves - I found them queueing up for the barbeque:

but then, the day before Dave was due back from skippering, I found this sorry specimen in the hen house.  I think it must have popped out when they were roosting, and I caught Daft in the process of pecking at it.  The books say you mustn't let them get a taste for their own eggs, or you'll not get any for breakfast, so I grabbed it quick and chucked it on the compost.  A while later I thought - 'but that was our first egg' - so I took a photo:

On Monday, having recovered from skippering and Sunday turnaround work, Dave set out to see if they really had started laying, and found this in a hollow of cypress roots:

We tested them for freshness, and boiled them up for breakfast.  Look what I found in mine!

Since then, we've taken delivery of two warm brown eggs every day.  They lay late morning, so not quite handy for breakfast.  And even Megachuck, who is a month or two younger, has produced a couple of tiny white eggs, just to show she can.  At least we know no-one is a rooster!

Clearing up the site

Week 22 to 29 July

Dave had gone off for a full week skippering, so each morning and evening I put on my big boots and floppy hat and went to work on clearing up the site.  I wanted it safe for us to walk around, which meant getting rid of the nail-driven wood, first off. 

Given that it was only comfortable to work between 8 and 9 each day, am and pm, I didn't get on very fast, but by Wednesday I had stacked away the wood that was worth saving for the stove in the winter, with splinters saved for kindling.  I was also collecting the bent nails, as these are very handy in a cob build, nailed into logs which are known as 'deadmen' that are embedded in the cob - the nails helping to key the wood to the cob.  The deadmen are then used for screwing window and door frames in to.  The picture shows my red bucket for nails and wire, black recycled-tyre bucket for wood splinters, and in the background, a huge blue carrier, full of re-useable shuttering for the bits we have to add concrete to.

Most of the rebar had been bent by the workmen when they took out the shuttering, but bent rebar is easier to pull out of the ground than straight pieces, although straight pieces are much more useful afterwards.  We may be able to cut the bent bits off, leaving some useable straight bits.  I didn't want to leave the bars in the ground, as they would prevent even tamping down of the underfloor surface.  I rescued seven short shuttering boards, and surprisingly, found just 14 straight pieces of rebar, and made some useful steps down the earth bank at the end of the site.  Good, hey?

This is our mountain of earth, to go back into the structure to be the underfloor.

One of the larger chunks of splurged concrete, prized up off our gravelly soil, and me in floppy hat and big boots, taken by the auto setting on the camera.

An even bigger splurge, that needed a mega-tool and archimedes ('give me a long enough lever and somewhere firm to stand ...') to lift off the ground.  This one was outside the structure, in the area where we want to dig a drainage ditch, so it had to go.  I couldn't get it further than this - it has to wait for Dave to break it up now.

 When I popped down the shop for a large crowbar, he only had this one.  It's nearly as tall as I am!  Bound to come in useful.  And below - my trusty set of site-clear-up tools (in pretty colours).

 

The Aftermath

Friday 20 July 2012

The lads came back on Thursday and took all the shuttering down.  That left us with the site ready for the next stage - or not.  There was concrete rubble everywhere, including big slabs on the ground where the machine had splurted.  There was wood still nailed down where they couldn't prise it off.  Wood in splinters, wood with nails sticking up everywhere underfoot.  Pieces of bent rebar.  Rebar embedded in the ground where they couldn't remove it, bent and and rusty nails, rebar off-cuts.  All very scruffy, and dangerous underfoot.

And in one corner, an error.  I had spotted this when it was shuttered, and mentioned it to Constantine, but then forgot about the crucial bit and just got it part fixed.  Not clever.  The photo below (in which my poor camera shows how it is suffering from all the work it has to do and has stopped opening its shutters properly) illustrates how the extended footing for the cob wall has been mislaid through the utility room space.  The footing in the foreground needs to be as wide as the footing in the distance.  Also, because the cob wall has been forgotten, the utility room is far too narrow.  I didn't spec this bit, I was just going to put a lean-to on afterwards, but Constantine and the concrete man wanted it to have proper foundations.  Unfortunately, this is at the highest point of the gable wall, where we have nearly 5 metres of cob.  We are going to have to drill holes, glue in rebar, attach steel and pour more concrete to extend the footing about 20 cm.  Meanwhile, I decided that if I've got this space, I might as well use it as a root cellar, and put a concrete skim in the base and a wood floor with trap door access on top. (Eventually).