Autumn Has Arrived

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Where has the time gone – can’t believe we are just 8 weeks away from Christmas!  Don’t want to think about it just yet.

Work on the side of the house has come on a lot and Phil has been busy continuing the stone cladding along the side street and put the last new window in.  He’s also got the new side door in and so happy the old metal one has gone (everytime you opened it there was such a noise – now we have a lovely new rustic wooden door and a new little porch.  He’s now working on the tile work on the rest of the side wall.  (We’ve decided to put tile cladding on the remaining part of the wall as it is where the house naturally splits and in the future the house could possibly be split in two and half sold off – we’re keeping our options open and always thinking ahead for potential saleablity.  We’ve already got 2 water meters fitted and the electric box has been put in for future development potential).  Considering we lost 5 months of work on the house due to Phil’s broken ankle things have moved on quite a bit.  The aim is to get just about all the ouside finished before the worst of the winter sets in and then carry on working on the inside of the house.  Some how don’t think we’ll be snowboarding this Christmas!  Not sure what we’ll be doing this year – will play it by ear.

Check out the photos so far on the work – more to come as we progress.

Happy Hallowean and another update to come before Christmas.

Hasta lugeo

Mel & Phil

New Entrance Porch is finished – more or less

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Well at last we have finished the new entrance porch – well just about – Phil still has to fit the light on the wall and entry intercom but they are minor things.  He’s also finished – more or less, the stone cladding on the lower half of the wall at the front and it certainly sets the house off nicely.  We’ve been getting some nice comments from our spanish  neighbours and we are really pleased with it.  Phil’s just got to carry on with the stone work now around the corner and up the street to the back of the house!  Should keep him quiet for a while – if you like jigsaw puzzles then this is right up your street – if not it will drive you up the wall – thankfully Phil is somewhere in between!!

Here are some photos to show you what we’ve been doing on the front of the house – click on the link as these are posted on FB but you’ll be able to access them – we hope.

Hasta luego

Mel & Phil

Photos

 

Summer Has Arrived!

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Well summer has well and truely arrived and we have temperatures up in the mid to high 30′s – great when you are relaxing on holiday but having to work in the heat is another matter!  Even the fish in the resevoir below Pinos are suffering and hundreds have died from what the authorities think is oxygen starvation due to an increase in algae in the water, but they are still doing more tests – tests on the water came back normal.  I could see fish floating on the surface when I passed by this morning on my way out of the village.

Phil has made a start on our new porch and has built the new brick archway and has tiled the floor and step to the new front door.  He’s now tiling the inner walls and the next job is to put the finish on the walls before we can paint.  Then he can add the finishing touches and it’s all done and he can move on to the next job – cladding the lower part of the exterior walls in stone.  Suffering with a broken ankle put his work plan back by 6 months so we need to get as much done on the outside whilst we have dry weather and then move back to the work inside.  Once the porch is finished I’ll post some Before & After photos.

Still keeping busy with the TV work and other bits and pieces so no chance of us getting bored!!

If you want to see what’s happening in the beautiful and varied region of eastern Andalucía that lies between Granada and the Costa Tropical or just get some info on Where to Eat, Sports & Leisure etc then visit South From Granada.com and take a look – the site is updated on a daily basis.  Our local Fiesta, San Roque, takes place in August from 12 – 16th.  The peace and tranquility of the village is shattered and you can’t find a place to park but they do have a good time!!

Well that’s all for now folks – have a great summer whatever you do.

Hasta luego

Mel & Phil

Happy Easter

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Happy Easter everyone!!  For those back in the UK – enjoy the lovely sunny, warm weather, for those over here in Spain – make sure you have an umbrella with you!!  We’ve got the UK’s usual bank holiday weather!!  Still at least we know we’ll definitely get a hot, sunny summer.

Just about caught up on our backlog of satellite tv work and now feeling a lot more relaxed.  Back at the hospital 12 May and see what the x-ray brings up for Phil’s ankle.  If all looking good then we’ll order 5 tonne of sand and start working again on the house.  Lots to do on the outside to finish it off and to build the new entrance porch.  Once this is done we’ll start back on the inside work.

I’m busy looking after a few more rental houses this year and if anyone is interested in visiting the area click on any of the links to the right to view some of the properties.  If there are just 2 – 4 of you then Casa Abuela is a lovely village house in the lower part of Pinos del Valle.  If you decide to book some time there let them know you saw it on Mels blog site.

That’s all for now folks.

Hasta luego.

Mel & Phil

At last – walking on 2 feet!!

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At last Phil’s been given the go ahead to start walking on both feet again and is starting to get some strength back in his foot and leg.  The x-ray showed the break hasn’t totally healed yet but the doctor told him to start getting some flex back in the foot.  We go back on 12th May for another x-ray and review to see how the healing process is going.  We’ve started doing some satellite tv work this week – the easier stuff and have now started booking all our backlog of jobs to start catching up from next week.  Don’t want to over do it as up and down ladders puts a lot of strain on the foot/ankle.  Hopefully no problems.  The Dr did say it can take from 6 months to a year for this type of break to fully recover!   As for snowboarding next season – we’ll have to see!!

Weather lovely and warm this week and in the mid 20′s.

Luego para ahora.

Mel & Phil

Still on Crutches!

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Well after our last visit to the hospital in Granada they took the cast of Phil’s foot but told him NOT to put any weight on it for another 4 weeks – just exercise the joint by rotating and flexing it!  We are due back at the hospital on 21st March for another x-ray and to see the consultant and then hopefully we’ll have some good news and Phil can start to stand on 2 feet again!  It’ll be 3 months since he broke it and boy is it taking longer to heal than we anticipated.  Understandably Phil is bored stiff and frustrated he can’t do any work on the house or work for our satellite TV customers.  We’ve been keeping in touch with our customers who have been so understanding and willing to wait for us to do the work and we are keeping fingers crossed that by mid April we can start working again and catching up on all our installations etc.  It’s going to take a couple of weeks, once Phil’s able to stand on two feet again, for him to get some flexibility and strength back in his ankle and leg and he doesn’t want to do too much and have a set back so we are going to have to take it steady but he’s got a plan to help protect his ankle whilst he’s working – wearing his motor-x boots!!!  They are very stiff and supportive so hopefully will help when he’s climbing the ladder.  Just hope his swollen foot has gone down enough to get them on!!

Weather here is a mix of sunny days and cold evenings with a few days of rain here and there, so not bad really.  Once we get to April then the weather should really start to pick up and already the evenings aren’t getting dark till gone 7pm so when they put the clocks forward it will really feel like Spring has arrived with lovely long days ahead of us.  Phil’s already got his new “hat” in preparation to keep the sun off during the summer – an Indiana Jones hat, and I must say he does look very fetching in it – just needs the whip now!!!!
Will keep you posted on how Phil gets on after his next visit.

Hasta luego

Mel

Still Plastered!

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Just a quick update to say Phil is still in plaster after breaking his ankle on Xmas Day.  It’s now six weeks since he did it and we are now trying to get an x-ray done to see if it’s healed enough to take the plaster off.  I took a trip to the medical centre last week and got a form to fill in and off we went this morning armed with all the necessary paperwork only to find the centre closed!  Not just us though another lady there also wondering what was happening – she pondered and then suddenly remembered – it was local fiesta time so everywhere was closed!  Typical I muttered and she smiled an understanding smile.  So we’re back there tomorrow but before we left I popped next door to Emergencies and asked if the medical centre would be open tomorrow for definate and I was assured it would be – however being a distrusting sole I’ve now found the phone number and will ring up in the morning before we set off to make sure!  If it’s closed then it looks like another trip on Monday.  At this rate it’ll be Easter before the plaster comes off (either that or Phil’ll just take it off himself!).

Work on the street at the side of our house is nearly complete and it’s looking very nice.  Once it’s all finished I’ll post a couple of photos.  Must be one of the best streets in the village!!

Spring is on it’s way as almond blossom is everywhere around at the moment and it’s looking stunning and the air smells wonderful.  We’ve got lovely sunny weather at the moment but the temperatures are cold – perfect walking weather and to take in the stunning views.

Well that’s all for now – will keep you posted when Phil is released from his enforced holiday (it’s done his PS3 gaming the world of good – up to Level 28 on GT5, trouble is he’s getting bored and restless now and wants to get back to work!).

UPDATE:

Ankle still in the healing process and taking longer than anticipated.  Ended up at the Clinico in Granada last Monday after getting an x-ray done locally and seeing his ankle hasn’t healed yet.  After spending 5 hours at the clinico in Granada he had another plaster fitted and told to come back on 21st Feb for another assessment and to see if it’s getting any better.  They said it has started to heal but it taking longer than we anticipated (probably down to age!!!).  So Phil is still chained to the PS3 chomping at the bit to get back on 2 feet and start working again.

We would like to say a big THANK YOU to our satellite tv customers who have been very understanding and are willing to wait for us to do the work once Phil is healed – we greatly appreciate your support and it looks like we’ll have a busy time ahead of us.

Weather has turned wet this week but if the forecast is right by the weekend the sun should be shinning again!!  At least the campo will benefit from the rain and all my plants on the terrace which haven’t been watered for a while.

That’s all for now folks – keep you posted on the invalid!

Mel ;-)

 

Happy New Year

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Well here we are in 2011 and work is continuing on the street at the side of our house.  They have now put new sewage pipes and water pipes in and the street has been dug down, old rocks taken out, leveled out with gravel and wire mesh laid!  Today they came to start laying the new surface but rain stopped play so to speak.  As it’s the weekend no more will be done till Monday now and weather is looking better for then.  Up until now we’ve had a mild sunny week with just the evenings getting a bit nippy.

We had an eventful Christmas – we went up to the Sierra Nevada to do some snowboarding on Christmas Day and met our friends Kate & Bear up there.  Weather wasn’t great with very limited visibility but we thought “what the hec”.  We managed to get some runs in and stopped for a coffee/chocolate break at mid-day.  After that we thought we’d go up for another run then try a different one.  However after getting off the lift and only a short way down Phil took a tumble and hurt his ankle.  He couldn’t snowboard down to the bottom so I hiked back up to the ski lift with him to see if he could hop on to get down.  However the weather had got so bad they’d stopped the lift so they had to call for a snowmobile to take him down and I had to make my own down in virtual “white-out”.  Bad enough but as my board had been sitting in the snow it had iced up on the edges and was running backwards!  After scraping the ice off I managed to get it going in the right direction and got down to the center.  I met up with Kate & Bear and made our way to the Red Cross center only to be told they’d taken Phil down to the main Medical Center.  We made our way down there and I found Phil laying on a steel table with his leg in the air and a man putting bandages around it.  Thinking it was only a bad sprain I then found out he’d broken his ankle (Phil did say he heard it crack twice when he fell!).  After sorting out all the paperwork we borrowed a wheelchair and Kate & Bear helped us get back down to the car and Phil settled inside the passenger seat.  After returning the wheelchair we waved goodbye to our friends and we made our way home (thankfully they were staying up at the ski resort for a couple of days and got an excellent days skiing in the following day – which was clear and sunny – totally the opposite to Christmas Day).  Not exactly a Christmas present Phil wanted – I managed to buy some crutches from the local Pharmacy (25 euros which I thought was very reasonable) and he’s hobbling around the house on those and also using my office chair to whizz around on (thank goodness our living area is virtually on one level.)  Two weeks have passed since the break and two more to go before we have to go and get another x-ray to see if it’s healed enough to take the cast off.  In the meantime as Phil can’t do any work he’s honing his driving skills on the PS3 with Formula 1 and GT5!

Well that’s all for now – will let you know when Phil gets de-plastered!!

Hasta luego

Mel

Happy Christmas!!!

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Well it’s Christmas again (almost) and we seem to be having a “Ground Hog Day” week!  This time last year we were having heavy downpours and days of rain forecast and yet again a few days before Christmas here we go again!!  After spending all summer waterproofing all the areas where we thought our leaks were coming from imagine our disbelief when yet again a damp patch appeared over the window in our lounge (where the terrace drain is) and on the side wall where we had no damp at all last year! Thankfully the other wall that was absolutely saturated last year has stayed dry with the slightest circle of damp appearing at one corner so all the work sealing the wall seems to have paid off and we don’t have water coming in under the log store in the lounge so all in all we do seem to have cracked 80% of the problem – just got to locate the remaining 20%!  Phil seems to think it’s the other side of the terrace where the house joins up with next doors and their roof-line buts up against us – the amount of rain running down the roof and into the gully has been torrential so the water’s bound to find a small hole or crack to work it’s way in.  Trouble is it’s so difficult to get to and seal but we’ll have another go in the summer when everything dried out.  As for the leak above the lounge window – Phil will get the scaffolding out in the summer and point up all the bricks that form the under part of the small roof overhang as we think the water could be working it’s way back up.  Problem with the houses here is that they’re not designed for heavy prolonged rain and many other people are having similar problems with their terraces – some make ours look like nothing (which in the scheme of things compared to last years leaks we’ve got off very lightly so far!!!).  However they are forecasting some dry weather from Friday onwards and we are hoping this year that we’ll be able to get up to do some snowboarding on Xmas Day.  I’ve got some new snowboard boots that I bought back in March and haven’t had a chance to try them out yet!  Been walking around the house in them to bed them in.  Fingers crossed I get to try them out at the weekend.

Phil managed to get our new front door fitted and it’s looking good.  The old door is still in-situ as he’s got to do some more work on the new porch yet before he takes it out.  In the meantime he’s finished building the new fireplace in the hallway which will house our new log burning stove that will (eventually) run the new central heating system (fingers crossed it’ll be up and running by next winter!).  He’s now decided to take it easy on the run up to Xmas and is currently on Formula 1 2010 on the PS3 and doing very well with his races!

We’ve been wondering for quite a while if the local town hall would ever repair the little street that runs down the side of our house through to the back street, as they seem to have repaired every other street in the village.  I asked at the town hall a few weeks ago and just got a shrug of the shoulders and a “no se”!  However we awoke yesterday morning to the sound of a dumper truck outside, voices and then lots of thumping noises – upon opening the window to have a look we saw at least 7 people outside starting to break up the street!!!  We had a chat with the Jefe (boss man) who said they were repairing the street – yipee.  However after digging down not to far they started uncovering the old drains that service our house and the old water supply pipework that feeds into our house.  There are pipes everywhere and no one has a clue where they all come from and go to – we have 2 stop taps outside now – one which was buried and we didn’t know about.  As we had to go out working yesterday we left them to it.  Upon returning we discovered that the buried stop tap was turned off which had cut the water to our kitchen, however the water in our en-suite was still running so it appears we have two water supplies feeding into the house!  The street had been left as a rubble building site and we had to clean out the rubble from the broken drain cover and put something over the top to stop rubbish been washed in and blocking it (it services our kitchen, bathroom & water run off from the back terrace and patio so if it blocks we’ve got BIG problems).  As it started raining last night and hasn’t really stopped since it’ll be a quagmire out there by the time they come back to start more work on it – which by the look of the weather will be after Xmas now!  At least they’ve roped off the 2 ends of the street to stop people walking through it.  We asked the Jefe it they were going to install new drains but he said no – however after uncovering the old rusting water pipes he said they would replace them with new ones – once they’ve worked out where they all go to and come from!   I have a feeling the work outside on the side street is going to take a few weeks!  I’ll put an update here in the new year.

Our SideStreet     Sidestreet
Ginger is still with us and well – sleeping at the moment as it’s too wet to go out – she came for a quick walk with me this morning when the rain eased up but she’s definitely not in the mood for going outside at the moment!  She ended up having a shower yesterday as she’d found something a bit smelly and rolled in it so in the shower she went.  She did the same thing a few weeks ago and had 3 showers in one week – she smells lovely afterwards (our orange and chamomile shampoo) and once she’s all dry goes soft and fluffy!

Well that’s all for now – hope you all have a great Christmas whatever your plans (I fear some of you back in the UK may not be going far with all the snow – at least you’ll have a white Christmas!).

Hasta luego

Mel & Phil ;-)

Autumn Has Arrived

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Where did the summer go????  Well the new guest lounge was finished in time for my brothers visit and we are pleased with the end result.

Dining Area in Guest LoungeGuest lounge sitting areaNew guest lounge

After that I carried on freshening up the outside terraces with a new lick of paint and sealed all the joints between the floor tiles outside to try and avoid any leaks when the rains start this year! Phil has been busy painting the front of the house this month and boy does it look different now it’s all white!  The locals all seem pleased it’s looking nice and fresh now.  Fingers crossed if it doesn’t rain tomorrow then Phil will get the final coat on and our scaffold will come down.  For the top half we had to borrow some scaffolding from one of the locals as it is 3 floors high and Phil also needed to fit guttering to stop the rains soaking the walls.  He managed to get all the top half finished in a week as the owner of the scaffolding needed it for another job and we were glad that bit was done.  Our scaffolding is high enough for the rest of the painting and Phil’s been doing it in between sat work and the odd day of rain.  Once it’s all done I’ll post some photos.

We had an upsetting experience in August just before the local fiesta began – Fred, one of our beautiful dogs, became suddenly ill and after taking him straight to the vets we discovered he’d eaten some poison.  He was a the vets all day but that evening when we went to see him (thinking he’d managed to get it out of his system) we discovered he was in a very bad state and had been on various drugs all day and Valium but the poison was taking it’s toll and it was 50/50 he’d survive the night.  We had to make the hard decision to put him out of his misery as we didn’t want him suffering any more than he already had.  It really upset us and Ginger (his sister) was so lost without him.  It’s taken her a while to get her confidence back but now she goes off with one of her “friends” during the mornings and then comes back and spends the rest of the day with us and stays tucked up inside every night.  When she comes for a walk with us she doesn’t stray too far ahead and waits for us.  We just hope the same fate doesn’t befall her, but living in the “campo” we have to accept these things can happen (as it has to many of our Spanish neighbours animals).

Phil has now acquired a new (well second hand) off road motorbike to go off exploring the miles and miles of tracks around here.  He’d been promising himself one for a long time but wanted to wait until we’d got most of the big work out of the way on the house.   Looks like the mountain bike will continue to gather dust now!!!

Well that’s all for now – next blog will probably be Xmas!!

Hasta luego

Mel & Phil