Monday, woke up feeling a bit fed up today, finished cleaning two chairs and then decided we should go for a walk. The day was lovely but a slight wind, good for walking, walked 5 miles so felt a bit better after that. David and Joao started early on the pool terrace, getting the electrics put in etc, and he will be ready for the tiles on Wednesday, now we need to see how we are going to collect them or get them delivered. Adrian and Roger turned up at Lunchtime due to problems with the jeep, so dont expect much to be done today. Went and had a chat regarding work still to be done and us moving in at the weekend, he is certain the inside will be finished from his side by Friday. This afternoon we contacted Nuno from Mesteraposa to see if we can get the front door put on and the outside windows all sealed by the end of this week, should be a possibility for Thursday, he will call back, called in to Antonio to see about the gates being finished, he will be up to do them Wednesday or Thursday. Called Carlos to see if he can schedule the interior doors for the end of this week, he will also call us back to confirm, and also he will finally give us the quote for the vertical exterior blinds. Waiting to hear from James and Valentina regarding fitting the curtains on Saturday and waiting on an email from Gorges regarding fitting the flue to the chimney. Have a distinct feeling that this week is going to be busy and also it will be a waiting game. Adrian thinks he will need another month, weather permitting to finish all of the outside, and he needs to adjust his quote for the sun terrace as he forgot to add in sealing the terrace floor!! Told him he needs to give us the adjusted quote as soon as possible, he has Roger helping him now so think that is the real cost of adjusting!!! Douglas cannot decide whether we should get our things out of storage now or wait until we come back from the UK I have lost the will to live with this as clothes etc are all in storage and we are coming back to the UK for 10 days in all and have very little in the way of winter clothes, plus the weather is getting cooler here!!, also will have very little in the way of furniture and no fridge etc, hey ho will just have to make do or buy a couple of big warm jumpers and pairs of socks LOL. Let us see how the week unfolds. Feeling Glum :(
Tuesday, feeling a little better today, curtain fitting confirmed for Saturday, TV etc fitting confirmed for Sunday. Tiles for pool extension being delivered on Thursday, and all our stuff from storage is coming on Monday morning, Oh joy, we will have clothes and bedding etc, cannot wait. Went to Guia to organise Tile delivery, bought the grout required and spacers also paint for the fire, got back and realised I had forgotten to buy the extra plinth required for the kitchen, groan, now means another trip to Guia, it is quite a long trip and just cheeses me off that we now have to go again. It is coming together really....... By the time we got back to the house, Adrian and Roger were putting the slabs in around the outside area of the kitchen, looking good, the wall art has been put on the outside of the kitchen extension, also looking good and Roger has chipped out the last piece for the wall art on the column in the kitchen. David was cementing the inside of the pool extension wall, although Joao seems to have disappeared so David was working on his own, very woolly answers when we asked questions!!! I have got to the stage where I don't really care who likes who or who gets on with who as long as they get the job done. Needed to ask Adrian some questions regarding radiators, outside windows etc but thought it best to wait until tomorrow. Had a good meeting with Manuel regarding the exterior vertical blinds and he has given us a really good price, so think we are going to go with him, but waiting on Douglas deciding. Have been invited to Mick and Paulines for dinner on Friday, my first Portuguese cookery lesson, hey ho better get my mind in the right frame LOL. Have changed my mobile to a Portuguese number now, have texted everybody to let them know, if you have not received the text and want the number get me on Facebook as I seem to be now having problems texting certain numbers, just what I don't need really. I am practising my Duo Lingo twice a day to help with my language, doing not bad and have got to Lesson 5, quite difficult really as we have only one word for one thing, but over here there are about 5 depending on who is speaking or who you are speaking to, takes some working out. :)
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| Stone finally in for step |
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| Archway from Kitchen to L/Room |
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| Slabs going in |
Wednesday, not sure what kind of day I could call it today, cannot get internal doors in until Tuesday, also not sure when we can get Front Door fitted and Windows sealed on outside, next week sometime!! guess we are going to have a few cold nights. Rain is forecast for Friday and Saturday hopefully it is not the start of the bad weather just yet. Radiators are not going to be done by Friday and a host of other things are not going to be finished so feeling a bit glum again :(. There is so many things still to be done inside before even the outside is started. Had a discussion with Roger today on the Sun Terrace, so will think about not having a roof on it because it is so high up a wooden structure might not stand the winter winds, we can still get the floor sealed and tiled and have a pool table maybe just not a roof above it, also discussed architrave around the outside windows, this is not too big a job and will give a better finish to the windows. Not even going to think about landscaping the garden just now, that will come in time when we have lived in it for a bit and then get a feel for what we want, it is also not a major consideration just now, once the mess has been cleaned up it will look not too bad, and Rome was not built in a day!!! The light has now been put up in the Living Room and the last piece of wall art on the kitchen column has been put in, also the slabs around the extension are finished. The gates were finished off today and we now have electric gates, but another job we have to get done is to dig the electric cable for the gates into the ground and once again repaint the gates where they have welded the electric arms, oh bother more work to get done. David is busy with the pool terrace although he is working on his own at the moment because Joao has not reappeared!! the tiles will arrive tomorrow afternoon so he will then be able to start tiling it, I have decided that Douglas and I will paint it, just add it to our list of jobs!! LOL. The weather is still good and managed to get all the washing done today, dried and ironed. Not cleaning until the weekend as we are moving out so will have double cleaning then, as will need to do our house as well, Happy Days. Have booked our flights to come back to the UK, will be in Scotland 5th - 10th December and Devon 10th - 14th December, so December will be a mad month as well.
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| Living Room Lamp Shade |
Thursday, 2nd Portuguese lesson this morning, sentences, ha ha would be a good idea if we could have the basics first, just as well I am doing Duo Lingo as well, this is not bad and I have got up to lesson 5 phrases now. We also have some homework to do for next week LOL. Retaining the information is my greatest difficulty, Douglas shuts off after a while, he does the same to me so not to worry he is taking it in!! After our lesson it was off to get another 8 tiles required to finish off inside, easier said than done as they have stopped doing the ones we originally got and have changed the size, why do they do that??? so frustrating, luckily it is in a spot that you will not really see so we should get away with it. Also bought the plinth required to finish off the kitchen units, although still waiting on the panel and cornice to come in, December sometime, What!!!! Back to the house, Adrian is busy putting in Radiators and Roger is doing the step outside the French doors to our bedroom. David is making a good job of cementing all the pool terrace. It is definitely getting chillier now and I need my slippers to keep my feet warm LOL, only 4 days to go and we will have warmer clothes etc etc, cannot wait. Have decided due to many factors that we will not be really settling in to the house in December due to work etc still to be done, we are just going to move in and muddle on, as long as we have, heat, light and hot water and something to cook on then we will just get on with things, we will be away for 10 days anyway so what does it matter.
Friday, going to be a non stop day today, phone call first thing we are getting the front door fitted sometime in the afternoon, Oh good, they wont be able to seal the windows outside etc but can fit the front door, well better than nothing I suppose. Another phone call to say that we would get a ton of logs delivered between 4 and 5, great supposed to be at Mick and Paulines to make the dinner tonight, oh well phoned to say we would be later. Managed to go get some food shopping, got back to the house and front door was fitted after 3 hours, looking good, again nothing is being done any justice at the moment because the house is not finished. Logs finally came, the truck just upended and dumped the logs in the front garden, so we then had to stack a ton of logs and wrap them in polythene as we have some rain and it is forecast rain for Saturday as well we need to keep them dry. Put a pile in the new log basket and also a couple of small piles on the terrace, so that will keep us going, wrapped the rest with polythene in the hope that they will stay dry. If they get wet we will not be able to use them this winter. Finally arrived at Mick and Paulines just after six, straight into my cookery lesson, Bacelhau et Nos, which is salted cod fish in cream with sliced potatoes, it was like making a lasagne only with fish and sliced potatoes, first time I have made Bechamel Sauce for a long time, but thoroughly enjoyed myself. Dinner was finally served just after 8.00pm, along with Carrots and Broccoli it turned out very well and I was dead chuffed. Mick has excellent equipment in his kitchen, and does all the cooking for them, and it was good for my confidence to do this, not sure if I want to cater for the size of parties that he entertains, but will certainly give it a bash once we are well and truly settled.
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| At last a Front Door |
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| How to deliver logs |
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| in two easy steps |
Saturday, another early start today, curtains being fitted at 09.30, packed up quite a bit of stuff so moving that in to the house as well. James and Valentina arrived and just got to work, they had another appointment at 2.00pm so had to be away by 1.30pm. It is amazing what they have done with the curtains, I did not think they would do our windows but they have managed to remake them completely and we are really pleased with the results, again nothing does justice to them at the moment and some of the photos might be a bit on the dark side, the only thing there was not time to do was the hooks for the tie backs, so they will return next week, not in a hurry for them as work is still being done anyway and have to wrap the curtains in plastic to keep them free of dust anyway. While they were doing the curtains we painted the fire, and that has come up really well also, so far so good. Needed hot water to try and wash down the floors etc, surprise surprise no hot water, cannot believe Adrian has gone away and left us with no hot water, wait until I speak with him on Monday. The Radiators are fitted on to the walls but are not connected to anything either, thank goodness we are still in our other accommodation until tomorrow, the fire will be dried by then so we will be able to use that and have some heat, not sure how we are going to wash on Monday morning, feeling annoyed :\ We then decided we would get the Double Bed put together as we will need to sleep on that tomorrow, proved rather difficult and really heavy as it is solid wood. We had difficulty trying to get the base attached to the headboard, I had a light bulb moment and suggested standing it on its end and then we could knock the joists into place, yes we stood it on its head only for it to collapse and hit me on the head and Douglas on the hand and crash to the floor. I now have a huge egg head which is very very sore and Douglas has a sore hand, as for the bed well solid wood it has some damage to it, that made me cry more than the pain, so not sure now what to do with it as once things are scraped and dented they never seem quite the same!!! feeling pained :{{ Oh well we might just have to go and buy a new base, oh joy!!! We got the single beds into the other room, again with great difficulty, they are solid and so heavy to try and manoeuvre up steps and round corners, we eventually got them in the room, and by this time I had had enough, time to give up for the day, tomorrow is another day so will start again. Not sure if today was as good a day as it should have been.
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| Living Room Curtains |
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Living Room
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Master Bedroom
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Master Bedroom
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Kitchen
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Bedroom 2
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Fire good as new
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Kitchen
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Sunday, Douglas was up first today and I got a cup of tea in bed, first time since we have been here, still have a sore head and my back is none too good either. Busy day as we are moving out of our temporary accommodation and in to our house, it is a great feeling just wish it was all finished. Alistair came to fit the TV and equipment at 11.00 so Douglas took things down and I cleaned from top to bottom so we left the house nice and clean. The weather is good again today, no rain which helps as our garden is a mixture of sand, cement and god knows what so it has been really yucky for the past couple of days. Alistair finished fitting the TV at 2.30pm and I had managed to finish moving everything else down to our house so we decided to go for some lunch, just to have a break. Then back to the house, tidy up what we could and put away what we could ready for tomorrow, the builders will be back. Lit the log fire, certainly need some practice getting a good fire going as it took a couple of hours, the house is cold though at the moment as we have no internal doors yet but we have heat so thank god for that. Tomorrow is going to be sunny and dry just as well as we have all of our stuff coming out of storage. A good day and a good end to the week and nice to at last be in our own house, a few more weeks and it should all be done.
Laughter Line for this week:
After the Americans went to the Moon, the Soviets announced they would be sending a man to the Sun. The Engineers objected. "If you send a man to the sun, he will burn up"! "What do you think I am, stupid?" he replied. "We'll send him at night!"
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| We have TV!! |
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| The home fires burning |
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