We've been mulling over what work surface to have in our new kitchen. Obviously having spent the last couple of years minus a kitchen, another couple of months while we debate work surfaces won't matter. However, surprisingly, we've reached a consensus on either polished cement, one of the fancy colored new resin and stone aggregates ie Silestone, marble or granite. Having spoken to Manuel, he sent us up to the Marble workshop in the village to see what they had. We were amazed to find that we could buy a wide selection of surfaces there, including Silestone. He had a wide range of local marbles and granites, as well as imported marbles and granites, including a natural granite that contained labradite - which shone green and blue.
They told us not to get the Silestone, as it wasn't very robust and not to get marble as it stained. So we were choosing a granite of some description. We decided not to get an imported one, thinking it would be nice to support local or national business. As it so happened, the one that we liked the best - a sort of neutral grey color, lightly speckled with bits of mica - is a Spanish granite so it worked out well.
We don't have a price yet, however I'll be surprised if it comes over budget.
I'm not sure if we are Manuel's favourite or least favourite clients. This week when he came round to talk about the kitchens I was asking him what we could do to stop the house from flooding when it rains. Our drain can't cope with the really really high volume that may only come once a year, but it is still annoying. The problem is because when the drain was put in, the gutter shot the rain water from the house into the street and into the neighbour's yard. Now houses have to be responsible for the disposal of their own rain water, we had to have the new down-pipe draining into our drain. Manuel suggested digging a small storm drain by the back step which we'd put a grid over. This will help the flow of water into the drain. That makes a lot of sense.
In the meantime he said to put the hose down the drain and give it a good clean to make sure that there was no silt in there.
So when he came round the next day, he was a little perturbed to find Ian lying on the floor by the drain with his arm, up to the shoulder in the drain- we'd managed to get the hosepipe stuck in the drain! We've a cheap old hosepipe and the top is bent back on itself and a small metal tube held in the end with a hoseclip. Either the top of the hose or the hose clip had got wedged somewhere. 'No problema', said Manuel, who rolled up his sleeves to have a go at getting the hose pipe out. After a while he decided that it was a 'grande problema' and next thing we know he's got a lump hammer out and was digging up the drain to get the hose pipe out. At the same time he was digging our new storm drain. As it started to rain I'm not sure whether his grimace was an expression of 'hey, it could happen to anyone' or something a little less polite.
While we were musing that we can buy almost anything in the village, Ian did also point out that we had to go 120 kilimeters to buy a turnip.
Obviously we didn't go to Badajoz just to buy a turnip, it was just a happy addition to our mega shopping trip. We also bought some paint to paint the sun terrace, some 'extreme' paint to paint the back gate, a chest for our sun terrace, 8 wooden legs to make two tables with (which we didn't necessarily plan to buy - we found some bargain ones in a diy store). One will be for the outdoor kitchen. We'll be using one of the old doors to do this. Plus, of course, our turnip for a new pasty baking session and a tray of baked beans.
Our plans for next week are to paint the sun terrace and outdoor kitchen. We've also decided on furniture for the sun terrace -
see it here.
