Stove

Well, you remember the little brown art deco stove that we bought in February - it needs new glass for the window, so yesterday saw us trailing around Zafra to crystalias asking for glass for the window. Everyone said the same thing and that was it would be difficult as it is slightly curved.

Steeped in gloom we headed home and I suddenly remembered the website where we'd seen the same stove for sale in the UK. So I found it, got in touch with them and they quickly replied saying we can easily replace the 'glass'. It's not glass it's mica! Apparently we can just cut it to shape with a pair of scissors and it clamps into place which will pull it into a curve. The lady was very helpful and explained how we would do it (and gave some handy hints such as using a heat proof glue to help hold it in place and seal it) - and she also said that our stove was very sought-after and it is unusual to find them for sale.

So hopefully we'll have that sorted soon - how exciting!

Happy (Belated) Christmas!

Christmas is very quiet here. Father Christmas or Papa Noel is regarded with suspicion as being a bit of a pretender. Everyone knows that the three kings bring the presents on the 6th Jan - not some old (American) geezer dressed in red. It is interesting how some of the traditions to overlap however. Children who are naughty get given coal instead of presents. Families also leave out some nibbles for the three kings' camels.

The big meal is on Christmas Eve or Buena Noche (good night). The traditional meal is fish, followed by more fist with fish to finish. There is a midnight mass which is referred to as the rooster mass. Everyone - young and old (but not British) then ends up at Disco Tony's.

This weekend is the really big shopping weekend and we found it strange that we got flyers through the door this week about buying presents. We both commented that they'd left it a bit late, until we realized that people would now be getting ready for gift buying.

I think it is safe to say that we would have been the only ones having a traditional christmas on the 25th. Well, if we had a traditional Christmas that is...

With no real kitchen our festive feast has been based around bread, cheese and eaten off of plastic plates. We did have pasta last night however.

Our plan had been to make glass beads on Christmas Day. However, yet again we were foiled. This time we had the wrong regulator. One day perhaps we'll get there. It was a shame as we'd really enjoyed making jewelry last Christmas and we'd been looking forward to doing something similar this year. Unfortunately by the time we'd got all the glass making stuff out, played around with the regulator, consulted the Internet to find out what was wrong with the regulator and sulked, there wasn't much time left to have any fun activity so instead we trimmed the dogs. Quite a feat and we managed to blunt a newly sharpened blade in record time. Mainly because the dogs are caked in cement dust and debris which was tough going. Yesterday Ian was working on his website and I was spinning some camel fibre.

So, back to normal now. The company that I did the writing for in November have commissioned another 8 articles which I will do today and then I have some catching up of other stuff to do. I've asked for extra articles from one company that I write for as we're trying to gather together the necessary readies for finishing the house.

Talking of which, our builder has recommended that we have a new drainage pipe put under the house. At the moment there is a brick drain which leaks water and this is part of the damp problem. So he is suggesting that they take up the middle three rows of the tiles in the hallway and put in a pipe. I don't think that this will be too big a job - just messy. However it makes sense to get it done now.

Weather

The weather has been glorious over the last few days. It is very cold at night, but is over 20c during the day.

Naturally with our house being so well insulated, we don't feel any of the benefits of the heat and it is markedly warmer outside than in. I reckon that yesterday there was 20 degrees difference!

This mean that every time we go out we nearly expire as we wear so many more clothes indoors than we need when we are outdoors!

I can see that this will become a favorite time of year with us (eventually) as there are lovely days and we'll have our stoves so we are nice and warm in the evenings.

I also realise that my premium bond idea may be flawed as the number of prizes decrease too when interest rates go down. What will happen if it goes to 0%? Will Ernie simply pack up and hibernate for a while?

Making Our Million

Well, I read something about someone who hadn't checked their premium bonds for years and checked them to find that they'd won several thousand pounds.

So, off I went scurrying to find our 'important paper file' which was buried under what appeared to be several hundred 'very unimportant paper files' to look for my premium bond numbers. Low and behold I'd won 50 pounds that I didn't know about.

I did a few double checks to make sure that they hadn't missed a few zeros off the end.

Anyway, a quick calculation showed that this was a 10% return on my investment. Admittedly I've had them for years, so this isn't a true return, but it got me thinking...

As I mentioned before we're not transferring any more sterling to euros at the moment. This leaves us with money in the bank getting next to no interest. I have toyed with taking it out and keeping it under the bed as this would also stop us worrying about banks crashing.

So, I think I will take the money we would have transferred and put them into premium bonds. We won't be any worse off and if we win our million we need never worry about exchange rates again!

We went Christmas shopping yesterday. We went during siesta which meant that there was next to no one around. We went to the big supermarket in Azuaga where there is at least a tiny selection of ready meals. We just bought some tortilini pasta and sauces for our Christmas meal. Not having a kitchen sort of hampers our culinary creation opportunities! The only holiday is Christmas day so we don't need to worry about stocking up on food. We'll go to the cheese shop, however, and treat ourselves to a festive selection.

Interesting(ish) Fact

The Spanish word for the tiled walls that we have is the equivalent of 'skirting board'. You either have tall or short. The half way tiling like we have in the hall is tall, the small tiles that we have along the floor in other rooms is short.

One room almost finished...

Above: This is looking to where the sink used to be.



The old kitchen / new bedroom is within a gnats whisker of being finished. It does look good. While we weren't 100% convinced by the white tiles, now they are finished we have both agreed that it was the right thing to do. Colored or patterned tiles would make the room look small. Although it is not tiny - it does have doors on three sides and a window on the fourth! So it does have the potential to look cramped.

I now understand what the problem was with the window. Because of the gradient of the wall inside the window, the windows would not open right the way back (the windows open into the room). A bit of the wall sort of curved which meant that the window came to a rest on this - a couple of inches from the wall. So poor Manuel has been chipping away to get it so it opens fully - and this has meant that he now has a funny shape to tile around. I don't think that the old windows would have opened fully either. Quite honestly it wouldn't have worried us as it was only a couple of inches - but, of course, we are delighted that he is doing it properly.

You can see where the exposed bricks are going to be. Manuel is going to hook out the old plaster and re-grout them.

The cheap door has arrived and I think it looks great. We were going to paint it, but now I think that we might stain it the same color as the windows.

How Did That Happen?

Well, how frustrating! We've gone from quite a good financial situation to not a very good financial situation, due to the pound to euro exchange rates, in what appears to be the blink of an eye!

We still have the same amount of money - however because of the exchange rate it shrinks when it gets here!

We have enough money here in euros to finish the work that we've planned. But we're going to draw a line under it then. We do have more sterling, but I don't want to transfer it at these rates - everything is just too volatile. Transferring any more money now will make our work here proportionately more expensive and no longer good value. It will use up any safety net that we have as it won't go anywhere near as far.

Luckily we'll have all the main building work finished, including the front of the house. We'll make sure that we have the guest room finished so we can offer bed and breakfast.

The main things we won't be able to do are the fancy bits like getting the rest of it decorated and reupholstering the furniture etc. Not forgetting of course other essentials such as investing huge amounts in light switches and buying new towels. (I may have given the impression earlier that I was disparaging of our decrepit old towels - what I now know that I should have said is that I love our vintage towels!

However this isn't the end of the world and we'll have got all the main things done. I know we could do the painting ourselves, and we might do the plain white outside walls, however I really want to use a professional for the inside.

So we have set ourselves a challenge of completing the work, and indeed living, off of our dollar and euro earnings rather than transfer any more sterling.

On the plus side, it is quite good to really focus on funding the rest of our work from our earnings - and we'll be in a good position eventually when the financial situation shakes itself out. It also means that we'll have a bit of a breather before getting the rest done so we can really decide what we want in the way of decoration etc.

Building Update - Old Kitchen

Tiling in the new bedroom. This has been a bit of a trauma and has taken a couple of attempts before he has been happy. The issue has been about how he handles getting the inset bit central. We were aware of quite a few smashing tiles and swearing coming from the old kitchen!



The new tiles are going around the wall and will follow the same design.



Yey! A new window! This is the first that has been fitted, however it might need to come out. We're not happy with the fit. The window recess actually has quite a large gradient from the inside to the outside, which means it looks fine from inside, but not quite right from the outside. We'll leave it in the hands of our builder. If it is not perfect - he won't allow it to stay!



This is a new hole in the wall and is where the pipe for the stove will be going. In the meantime, we have a new place to get drafts from!



The door upstairs where our new cheap door will go. The old door literally fell out today. When you look through the pictures at the old door - and also look at the quality of Manuel's work, you can see we were fighting a losing battle trying to keep the old door!! We were only keeping it to save money so our cheap door really is a great alternative.

Building Update - Pics

The ceiling has been repaired above the door.



This is from what will be the new en-suite into the new bedroom (old kitchen).



This will be the 'window' from the new ensuite.



This is the old kitchen soon to be bedroom.



Main Bathroom

Invited to Matanza

Our builder is flitting to and fro from our house to his family's matanza today. A matanza is the killing of a pig where family and friends get together. They start the day with a live pig and end with sausages and jamons and just a small pile of skin and teeth left as everything gets turned into something! This all takes place in a garage, in fact, it is taking place in garages all round the village as this is the time of year for pig killings.

We were invited to join them and he seemed a little surprised when I declined. Ian might go later, however.

Door

Well, our builder packed us off to look at cheap doors yesterday with strict instructions to ask for puerta muy barrata (a very cheap door). We went in and couldn't see anything remotely cheap, so we had to ask the man behind the counter and it was as if we had said a magic password. He took us through the store and out into the back, past some fork lift trucks and, behind a screen he had the cheap doors! So we bought a very basic door, the cheapest we could get. However when it is painted it will look fine. We also bought some fittings and found some excellent handles, which we both liked immediately we saw them. The total amount was 112 euros - which for a wood door here was very good.

We're glad that we got a new door. I was thinking that I'd make a curtain to hang over the old door, however this is much better.

Anyway, this is our new favorite shop! It's unlike anything that I've seen before. It is open to the public and isn't a tiny carpentry, however they sell loads of unfinished furniture. Not flat pack, this is furniture that is unvarnished and unpainted. Lots of very traditional furniture and very good prices. I was beginning to despair a bit, as we will want some more furniture and with the dearth of charity shops and junk shops, our choices are limited. They certainly had a couple of chest of drawers that would be perfect for what we want. We can paint or varnish the furniture as we like - which'll be perfect!

Ian Returns

Ian returned from the UK via the super fast train from Malaga to Cordoba. This train goes at the speed of light, cutting the journey from over three hours to under an hour. Well, it might not actually be the speed of light, but it is jolly fast! He then got the bus back to Villagarcia direct from Cordoba. This meant that he was home at 5.30 which actually wasn't bad going.

I think that he was pleased to see how the building work has progressed. The main bathroom is almost finished and they are working on the new bedroom. We've asked for a few extra things, which will add to the time a bit, but it makes sense to do them now. Although I think that we'll be looking at few extra weeks, what we're doing is going to make the difference between something that is just 'nice' and something that is 'great'.

We're going to have the bathroom sink set into a piece of marble. While this sounds expensive, it won't be as it will be an off cut from our local marble workshop and this will means another small wall in the bathroom so there'll be a wall either side of the sink.

We've also asked him to make a feature of what was the door between the kitchen to the workshop. This is going to be blocked in, however it will be blocked from the the workshop side and we'll have a recess in the bathroom. He's going to put opaque glass tiles in here which will give a little light and will also make a make a nice feature.

We're also having a new boiler, so we'll have two boilers one for the new kitchen and one for the bathrooms. These will be housed outside the house. We're also having the piping put under the ground rather than running it along the side of the house. This will look much neater and also will be safer from damage. These are just small bits and pieces but they are going to make all the difference.

We've decided to get a new door to go up under the stairs. We weren't going to, but the builder is strongly recommending that we do as the old one does look pretty awful, but also it is drafty. He has suggested we get a really cheap one now, and we can replace it in the future with a better one. He has had a really good idea. Wood is expensive here, so to save money, lots of people have a sort of mesh across the inner panel of the door and put curtain material behind this. This will be ideal and should only cost 100 euros or so.

Lastly, we are going to ask him for a price to take the wall thing down in the yard - the wall the incorporates the well. We were planning to do this in the future, but I think it might make sense to do it now, when we have builders on site with all their stuff and the fact that there'll be loads of stuff to clear, so this can get included with that. We're not decided on this yet, it depends on the price.

Hopefully that will be all for now! I will certainly be glad when this is complete - but it'll be worth it (hopefully!!)

Best Made Plans

Today, being the first Saturday in the month should have been the Badajoz flea market. So, bouyed by our success last week at the jumble sale (yes, I know I said I'd write about it, however to sumerise - 2 bedside tables, 6 very Spanish looking wooden chairs, a wash stand and 36 forks) we headed off. Only to find that it is another fiesta and again EVERYTHING was shut. There is less of a frenzy at this time of year, as presents are typically exchanged Jan 6th, so it isn't quite the same as having all the shops in the UK shut 3 weekends before Christmas.

Even so, we had planned to go to El Cortes Ingles, Carrefour as well as stock up on junk and we certainly hadn't planned to stand there miserably looking at shut shops.

However, a little light bulbed flashed and we thought 'Portugal'. So, we nipped over the border and did the shopping we needed in Elvas. Today is Constitution day, which is, of course, unique to Spain. It's a bit strange though, people who normally work Saturday get the day off - people who don't normally work Saturday get Monday off. So the shops will be open on Monday but offices are closed. Actually, thinking about it, that probably works quite well.

Anyway, when we were heading into Portugal I just happened to notice a chair that had been dumped. it is a wooden framed armchair and perfect for rennovation. So, we stopped and popped it in to the back of the car. It is, however, in appalling condition, with bits of tree, leaves and general debris hanging off it. We looked even more like gypsies.

And I am sure that this is what the Policeman thought when he pulled us over.

On the way back, we thought we'd go to Talavera. There were three big battles or sieges here during the Penninsular War. There was the Battle of Albueara (These glorious fields of grief - Byron), the Siege of Badajoz (which if you have seen Sharpe, you will know that Sean Bean won single handedly) and the Battle of Talavera. So we thought, as we go past the road to Talavera we'd go in and have a look. There was a siege at Talavera, however there are no signs of any city walls left. We were looking for any reference to the battle and took a turn down a one way road. A nice policeman was sat in his car watching, and pulled us over. I think he wished he hadn't, and it all got a bit confusing. Particularly when we thought we were supposed to follow him as he led us back to the main road, and judging by the panicked way, after we had been following him for while, he eventually waved us on, I don't think that this was the case.

Good Bye Kitchen

Any guesses what this is? It's the ceiling above where the shelves were in the kitchen. Look at the size of the stones! When they pulled the ceiling down, a load of wheat fell on them - a huge amount. No idea as to whether this was insulation, or left over from when the upstairs was a granary or some other strange reason. I didn't get a picture, however the floor was several inches deep in wheat!

The kitchen - the cupboards have been knocked down.

More pics

Our ex-kitchen soon to be bedroom.

This is the cupboard under the stairs. This is where the washing machine will go and will lead into the main bathroom (the door is to the left of the glass 'window'.
This is where we've set up our temporary kitchen! This was the guest bedroom.

Windows

Just a quickie to say that the windows arrived today.

Ian and I nearly cried when we saw them - because they look so good, not because we were disappointed. It was quite an emotional moment after all this time! Even the fittings (that we didn't choose, just 'arrived') are perfect. The quality is excellent. This was our biggest risk as it was a large investment, but they do look great. Of course, they are not fitted so at the moment they are just looking wonderful while propped up against a wall and we still have our festering windows that are held together by mould and spider's webs, and duct-taped into place. But we're heading in the right direction...

The builder has bought a laborer in to take the tiles off the kitchen wall. Sadly he sings. It isn't just that he sings, he signs flamenco tunes (wailing) and more than once we have thought that there has been some horrendous accident in the kitchen.

The jumble sale at the weekend was good and we personally contributed about a fifth of the (very small) takings. But, you can never have too much junk.

The weather is horrible - grey and very cold.