Puppy-dog tales and other stories

29 - 31 July 2018

Angel-pup has been sleeping inside, since the really stormy weather a few nights ago, and has proved to be naturally house-trained (how can that happen!).  At first she was in the Music Room, but now that's been stripped bare, she's in the living room.  She seems to like being under something, so I made a little roof for her space.

 Having a kip

 Our one and only carrot from the garden, grown from randomly strewn old store cupboard seed

 A couple of boxes to see if we can grow oyster mushrooms on the kitchen window sill (I hate the plastic trays they come in from the shops)

 We have been having a lot of trouble with the sink drain blocking up.  This baby gecko is a casualty of slow drainage, it has drowned overnight

 The poo- and pee- pen.  Angel is having trouble identifying where to leave her poo where it won't be any trouble, so I made a rickety enclosure - now, how to explain to her what it is for ... ?

Some small portion of our enormous glut of tomatoes.  Pasta sauce again, Dave??

To the beach

28 - 29 July 2018

On Saturday, we climbed ladders and measured the Music Room for the wood order, then went into Lefkas town to place the order.  At the same time we took Angel-pup in to the vet for her injections, which wasn't too traumatic.  She coped quite well with the car - scared but not too many emissions (from her), and took the jab without a sound. 

So on Sunday, we thought we'd try a trip to the beach, a tiny beach in Perigiali, which we thought might be deserted.  It wasn't, but it was so small, it had a community atmosphere and the other couple of people were very nice to Angel. 

She bravely took to the water, and just started swimming.  As much to her surprise as ours, we think.  Realising she was out of her depth she reached me and tried to climb on my head.  She wasn't too sure about it all, but it was an encouraging start.

 Back in the shallows, she's still not certain about this cold wet stuff.  It's much safer on my head!

Dave (in the shadow of the tree, with Ian) considering the logistics - helping Mark move his caravan out from behind an olive tree.

Clearing the Music Room for action

25 July 2018

After helping dismantle the scaffolding, Panos then helped us move everything out of the Music Room - the next area to be ceiling boarded.

 In the window facing west, I foolishly left a candle on a scrap of silk, last winter.  Then the summer arrived, and now I have a thin coating of wax in this window - oops!

 The Music Room, emptied of furniture and instruments, except for a couple of chairs for drinking tea and considering things.

 Over the door into the rest of the house there is a square of unplastered wall.  This was left open at the time, because the only heating was the stove in the Music Room, which would warm the bedroom through that gap.  Later we fitted an air pump and a heat exchange mechanism, but now the big stove heats the bedroom, and we can take the silver pipe out.

Our 'industrial chic' heating pipe - to be removed

Finishing the Living Room ceiling

25 July 2018

On Wednesday, Panos was able to come to help us, so we were able to finish the final section, K and complete the living room ceiling.  Hurrah!  What a relief.  I had been so worried about working at height across a wide span, so it's fantastic to be finished.

 Panos being very agile and tackling the bits we would not have been able to reach without moving the scaffolding forward and back for each baton.

 Dave and Panos fitting boards, after I'd done the stuffing

 And the final board, a tiny triangle, goes into position.  

 And that's it, the scaffolding dismantled and outside, how nice to have the room clear of it again.

A slightly weird angle, showing how nice the white looks against the rafters

Checking in on the garden

24 July 2018

The garden is flourishing madly.  Dave is fantastic, going out and watering every morning, until he's exhausted and overheating.  A big part of this winter's work will be setting up a robust water capture and distribution network in the garden.

 The top beds, dug out as swale (ditch) and berm (mound) terraces, and filled with masses of woodchip, are doing really well.  From the bottom corner, there is a small Moringa tree in the foreground, with tomatoes just behind.

 Slightly higher up, the bed in the foreground has goji berry bushes in flower at the front, and a couple of Moringas further back.  Buckwheat planted as green manure is flowering around the base of the Moringas.

 And a miracle!  One of the Moringas has put out flowers.  If there is enough summer left they might go to pods, and then we have our own seeds.  The Moringa is very adaptive, so each generation of seeds is better suited to our climate.  Fingers crossed!

 Our fabulous strawberry clump, providing a good handful of strawberries every day for my breakfast

 Along the top bed (with Dave in the background, showing the height of the Moringas (about 6ft).  The roses are doing well too.

 Our little orange tree, which was covered in tiny fruit, but when it got too hot they all fell off.  Now it has started putting a few new ones out (centre of picture).

 Angel-pup, helping Dave with the watering and getting damp and worn out in the process

And the garden herb bed, gone crazy with rocket, kale, parsley and mint, and unspecified courgette/pumpkin type plant transplanted from just outside the chicken run, self-seeded.

Working round the stove

24 July 2018

All ready to do the last section of the living room ceiling (although the last but one still needs doing, as we'd skipped over it to fit in with Rowan's availability.

 The puppy is allowed in the house for the first time, and gets to explore round the scaffolding

 The stove is dressed up 'like a pregnant Mexican' says Dave, to protect it from inadvertent falling objects.

 Rowan arrives, and we start fitting the batons

 We drop the collar revealing some of the heat-proof insulation.  Nasty stuff - possibly fibreglass.  The stove installers, who were excellent, left us a square metre extra so we could put it round the chimney at this point.

 Complete failure to find the camera at the critical time, but the white heat-proof insulation filled almost all the area between the cross batons, except maybe 18cm  at the near end which was far enough from the chimney to have the usual insulation.  Rowan packed it all in, wearing a mask against the dust, having cut a circle out of the boards, and fixed the collar back up.

 Then Dave and Rowan fitted the last corner board, and Rowan's work there was done.  He still had a bit of time, though, so he helped us fit the two big, heavy boards in the utility.

We dropped the light fitting, fixed the boards and refitted it.  There is so much wiring in here, we decided not to indent the boards between the rafters, but span across them.

A few milestones omitted

July 2018

Most of my blog photos are taken with the camera, but increasingly I'm using my phone when I don't have the camera with me.  Then I forget I have these extra shots to include in the blog, so here's a few notes that should've been included earlier in the month:

 2 July - Getting the band back together: Robbie, Dave, Mark and Rob play a nostalgia gig at the Tree Bar

 4 am July 4th - Angel arrives - this picture is too sweet not to be included!

 4pm July 4th - on the way back from dropping Rob off at Igoumenitsa, Dave and I go a little crazy and order a new car!  Neither of us have ever had a new car!!!  A 2018 Nissan Leaf - all electric - not yet released in Greece, but we hope to get it before the end of the year (and hope that our battered Punto will last that long)

16 July - a property I part-own in the UK is being sold, here are the signed and witnessed contract documents strapped to the back of the bike, ready for an early dart to the Post Office.

Grounded!

18 - 23 July 2018

My backache gave me three days - and nights - of pain, and Dave's vertigo was still an issue, so we did very little until Friday 20th, when Liana came and gave us both therapy.  The pain continued to ease after that, and after a second session on Sunday, we felt ready to leap back into action.

We had managed to do all the preparation for the final three spaces in the ceiling while grounded, and Rowan had said he could come to help with the one that has to be fitted round the stove chimney on Tuesday.

Much to our surprise, we successfully fitted section J on Monday, all by ourselves.  (There is no section I to avoid confusion with numerals).  Then we moved the scaffolding, skipping K for the time being, ready to do L on Tuesday.

 Wednesday: painting boards ...

 Friday: painting boards ...

Monday, back in the air!

Feeling the strain

15 - 17 July 2018

On Saturday our new electric outboard motor for the dinghy arrived.  A couple of weeks ago, when Dave and Rob went out in the boat, Dave had left a bag with his emergency waterproofs and the remains of his lunch on board.  I was a bit concerned that two weeks in July might have made the lunch remains a bit active, so I wanted to go out to the boat to investigate and retrieve the waterproofs.

We keep the dinghy at home, so the process of getting to the boat involves loading the inflatable on the roof of the car; collecting oars, pump, seat, hats, drinking water and other paraphernalia; driving down to a good launching spot, finding somewhere to park the car, realising we've forgotten the safety cord, rushing back for it, and setting off.  Before the new motor arrived, we then had 15 minutes rowing in each direction as well. 

Trying out the new motor was lots of fun, and it went very well.  The abandoned lunch was contained, and could be fed to the fish, the waterproofs not riddled with maggots, and the boat was fine.  We pottered around the bay, met some friends, suggested we meet for dinner, and then reloaded the boat on the car.  The reason all this is relevant is that all the lifting and carrying didn't do my back any favours.

 I didn't take any photos on the water, which is a pity, but here's the outboard back home, deconstructed for storage

 Drilling and painting boards ready for the next day.  Brian had offered to come on Tuesday again, so on Monday Dave drilled and sanded and I painted eight boards so we would have them ready if the work went well the next day.  But the weather had turned changeable, so I didn't do them outside, and finding places for eight boards involved coffee tables, and low bars on the scaffold tower, stooping and stretching and twisting - not very clever!

So overnight my back went into agony, I couldn't get comfortable in bed and every movement caused a spasm.  So next day I was restricted to ground crew duties, while Dave and Brian did the high wire act.

 Holding a board for sawing, one of the jobs I could do

 Brian hard at work

Brian and Dave finish the eighth board, H, the last with a square end.  The final three are on the diagonal again.  With only two of them working, only one section was completed.

Garlic crop and more prep

12 July 2018

Dave planted out some garlic earlier in the year, and it seemed to have done all the growing it was going to, so we picked the cloves, mostly tiny, but perfectly formed, and I had a go at plaiting them into a rope.  Not terribly good - note to self: plait while still supple, don't let them dry first!  But not so bad for a first attempt!

 Working on the 4.8 metre batons