Category: Our Adventures

Well just how lucky are we. This place is amazing, the more time I spend here the more I love it - the country, the people (both from near and far), the weather, the language (even though I struggle sometimes), but most of all our house. Those of you that will have read our blog from the start will realise that this was not the first place we chose but it was the last ... we could not be happier. The weather: Everytime I walk outside the door it amazes me that the air outside is warmer than inside, I'm sure I'll get used to this in time but for now it is still a novelty. Yes we have had a lot more rain than is seasonally expected, but because it is so intense and usually accompanied by wicked thunderstorms it is almost fun. I love thunderstorms and used to love watching them in the UK, when we got them, but...

For the first time in a long time we have said 'au revoir' to our builders and will have the next couple of weeks to ourselves. This does not mean things stop, on the contrary it actual means we will be working harder, however we took advantage of the lull in other people's activity to take a day off ourselves on Sunday and visit Kia's family. They live over the other side of the country but it was a nice day and it meant we got away from the house for a little. Both of Kia's parents (Ava and Rambo) and her sister (Mia) live together and we absolutely love seeing them and of course the humans they have as pets are not bad either! We went early in the morning so we could be back in plenty of time for our dogs, but as ever got gassing and didn't end up back home till about 5pm...I wish we lived closer. So back...

As most of you are aware we now have electricity to add to the list of facilities we are now the proud owners of...well a list of two, water and electric, we are still working on the drainage side of things...but very nearly there! In my last installment we had ordered two able workmen to come and help dig the hole that we had started, well able they might have been but turn up they certainly didn't so we continued to dig ourselves with more than a little help from our trusty wall-builder, Ashim. Hampered by nights of torrential rain, which meant the mud got really heavy and extremely slippery, followed by afternoons of heavy, close, hot and sweaty in preparation for the next thunderstorm we have eventually made it... a massive hole to sink the septic tank into, a trench to it from the shower room, a trench from it to the drainfield and an even bigger hole to act as...

Well there's no doubting that when things happen here they certainly happen. Firstly we engage an electrician to rewire the house and having looked at what we wanted arranged to come back a couple of days later to start the work...brilliant, only trouble was one room was completely clad from floor to ceiling in pine including all the beams...to wire that room would be a nightmare so we got stuck in to remove it all, finding hundreds and hundreds of empty walnut shells behind all the wood - left by the previously resident mice! On the plus side we now have plenty of wood to fuel our new and improved cooker... The room was 99% cleared when they arrived and cracked on with the work - three days later it was all complete - all we need now is some power from the street to the house and we'll be rocking. Whilst the guys were on site doing the electrics we got on with...