Well the heat of summer has gone and we now have more comfortable temperatures.  This week storms were forecast for the Granada area but so far we only had a small downpour last night with a spot of tunder & lightening.  Supposed to be a few more stormy showers today and then sunshine & cloud for the rest of the week with temperatures around 22 degrees – wonderful.

We had our annual wood delivery the other week so we are now well stocked for the winter when it arrives (seems mad stocking up with wood when it’s 30 degree heat but it’s worth it – nice dry wood ready to go).

Work on the house continues and we are on the last part – the top floor at the front of the house.  The chapa roof is being lined out with 3 different types of insulation and the decorative beams are up and the wood panelling going in slowly.  Once all that’s done I think the new internal walls are next which will also be insulated.  All in all probably 6 months of work ahead but all being well by April 2015 we will be ready to start renting out rooms!!!!  Over the winter we’ll be starting to work on info for the website etc and waiting to see what the new rules are from the Junta de Andalucia for holiday rentals.

Apologies for not updating the blog for such a long time 🙁  Work on the house has been progressing well and after a long 6 months of work the new guest suite is now finished!!!  We are really pleased with it and was well worth all the hard work (on hubbys part).  It was recently christened when our old friend & his son visited and both guest rooms were tried out and given the thumbs up.

Our next job after our friends visit was to redecorate our own living quarters and I’m happy to say that our bedroom, bathroom & lounge are all now freshly decorated and looking good.  The log burner has been given a good sweep out and polish so fingers crossed this winter we won’t be suffering with smoke billowing out into the lounge everytime the door is opened.

As usual the summer has arrived with hot weather and the village is currently getting prepared to kick off with the annual summer fiesta this Thursday evening and it will go on till Sunday night.  The office is ready for Ginger to escape to and hide from the noise of the rockets, fireworks and marching bands.  Peace will return by Monday.

Work has now started on the final part of the house on the top floor to create the last  bedroom & ensuite and access to the guest terrace (stairs are there but it’s more a building site at the moment).  Fingers crossed and if all goes well we might have it finished by the Spring and be ready to start receiving paying guests.  The new rules for renting out property/rooms will be made available later in the year so we’ll see what we need to do to get registered.  In the meantime we’ll crack on with the work.

Hope you all enjoy your summer whatever you are up to and hopefully my next post will be a little sooner – probably Christmas!

Hasta luego

Where does the time go nowadays.  Doesn’t seem 5 minutes since we were celebrating last Christmas and here it comes again!

We’ve managed to get loads done this year on the house – mainly due to lack of other paid work, and by June all the hallway and landing had been finished. It’s so nice to walk in to a lovely finished hallway and not a building site! I’ve been busy painting etc and during the summer we concentrated on some remedial work on the terrace to hopefully fixed the leak above our bed when it rains. So far so good but not had a lot of rain yet (November and still in the low 20’s during the daytime!).  All the terraces and patio have been painted this year and we took the last small roof off which was at the side of the metal stairs leading up to our terrace –  to make use of the space we’ve created a new store area (nicknamed El Shed) with a small sloping roof – this gives us some more outside storage up there. We also took out the old chimney which passed through the office down to what will be the 2^nd guest bedroom. This has created more space in the office and we redecorated that after the work was finished. We’ve also had to rebuild the pillars on our terrace and replace the decorative brickwork with some nice new iron railings – made by hubby of course. I think it looks better now as it seems to open up the views from the terrace down into the valley below. Now we’re into Autumn the next job is the 2^nd guest bedroom/bathroom. Hubbys just spent the last week removing the old flaky paint off the ceilings in there and knocking some more walls out. Fingers crossed by May 2014 it will be ready for our friends & family that will be visiting us.

I thought last year we might have the new central heating system (fired by the special log burner in the hallway) up and running by now but alas no – think that will be next winter – we’ll get there in the end. This will get done when we start the last job of reforming the 3^rd floor area at the front of the house which leads out on to the guest terrace – this will give us the final 3^rd bedroom. Finally, when this has been done we can more or less say we are finished and hopefully start the B&B – if we have any money or energy left.

My god where has the time gone????  Already half way through January and Christmas seems a distant memory.  Can’t believe it was August when I last posted on here – so tardy – getting worse in my old age.  I can report that the new utility/store has been finished since July – all painted and working wonderfully.  Since finishing that we have also renovated part of the old mill area where the old press used to stand (and where we used to store the sand & rubble) that is now the new satellite equipment room and the old area has been cleared ready for the spring/summer to start work on the 2nd guest bedroom area.  Till then hubby has also finished our new book case on the stairs which is in the gap where we blocked up the old entrance to the kitchen.  I’ve been able to unpack 4 more boxes and found books I’d forgotten I had!  Now he’s working on yet another store area in the old mill bit which when finished means we can store stuff like the bikes, snowboards, etc out of the way and close a door on it to keep everything relatively dust free.  Once that’s done (possibly in a couple of weeks time) then I think he is going to start on the hallway & stairs.  We want to get this done so that everytime you walk into the house you don’t feel like you’re walking into a building site.  As the 2nd guest bedroom is towards the back of the house we can keep the doors closed on that and out of sight whilst the work is going on there in the summer.  As we have to take out an old chimmney which passes through the office and down to the guest bedroom we want to wait till the dry warm weather before we start as we’ve decided to put new roof tiles on that section of roof too (the only bit with old tiles).  Not looking forward to the mess but in the scheme of things not a lot compared to before.  Will have to clear out the office for the work but it’ll give me a chance to tidy up and redecorate in there and once the chimmney is out it’ll give a bit more space.  It would be nice to think that by next winter we’ll have the central heating going (running off the log burner with back boiler in the hallway) and 80% of the work on the house done.  If we could start taking paying guests by 2014 that would be great as money is getting tight now and we need the house to start paying us back with an income.

Our TV work has now gone quiet – which is not usual in the winter but an added worry is that come the summer all the BBC, ITV, Ch4 etc. will disappear down here in southern Spain.  They are moving the channels over to new satellites and these will have a much tighter beam over the UK and less overspill here in Spain.  What this means is that unless you can afford or have the space for a satellite dish of 3m or more then bye bye BBC etc.  On a positive note, there will be some English channels left (free & pay by Sky) that we will be able to get as they are rumoured to be moving to the new European beam on the new satellites which will give us stronger signals on these channels.  As with all technology stuff is moving on apace and it looks like the way to go for BBC etc will be via internet but until we know more in the summer we are advising people to wait and see what’s available in August as new stuff is coming online all the time.  These satellite changes will either kill our business dead or open up new opportunities which we are unaware of at the moment.  Till then we’ll crack on with the work on the house and see if we can spin the savings out a bit further till it’s finished.

My friend came out to see us in October (just as the rains arrived so not a sunny trip for her apart from her last day here!) for a few days and then 4 days later hubbys mum & dad arrived for a 2 week visit and the sun shone all the time they were here and temperatures were in the high 30’s for some of the time – couldn’t wish for better weather in October considering the start to it!!

I had a nice week back in the UK at the end of November, seeing family & friends and catching up on stuff.  Got a few bits done and some last minute Christmas shopping.  It’s been 3 years since our last visit and for me too long – think I need to make a trip back once a year (hubby stayed home with Ginger as didn’t fancy going back – was fine by me as I could do all the stuff I wanted to – like shopping and going out with my friends!!!).

Weather here has been relatively mild so far and as a result the almond blossom has been out since the beginning of January which is very early.  However we’ve got some strong cold winds blowing now so not sure how the blossom will hold up against it.  Despite a wet start to October the weather has been quite dry over the last month or so but I see rain is forecast for end of this week and into next so looks like dry spell over.  Will be good for the campo though and also the ski resort (not that we’ll be going up as breaking his ankle has put hubby off snowboarding for the time being! Perhaps when all the work on the house is done he’ll think about going again).

Well that’s all for now folks.  No doubt it’ll be summer by the time I get around to posting another update.

Well it’s been 3 months since my last update and I can now confirm that we have the new entrance between the utility & kitchen in place and the old one is well and truely blocked up (not a job we were looking forward to and the dust gets everywhere but at least that’s one more messy job out the way).  Now that we’ve got used to the new route into the kitchen it is soooo much better.  Hubby is just finishing off the last few decorative trims on the units and then I’ve got yet more painting to do.  I’ve already painted the Store Room, Cloakroom, Passage way & Doors, just the the last bit to do and then I can repaint the kitchen too and that bits all done!  He’s even fitted our new door buzzer which connects to an entry phone in the utility so I can talk to whoever it is waiting in the porch – if it’s some one I don’t want to see then I won’t bother going down to answer the door!!!  Not sure what the next job is as that on the list stored in his head.

After a very dry Spring we are now well and truely in to summer and after a week of nice comfortable temperatures they are due to start rising again into the 30’s within the next few days.  Ginger has already had a hair cut (did that at the end of May) and after a hour and a half and a carrier bag full of fur she was looking quite sorry for herself but now it’s getting hot she’s glad she hasn’t got the winter coat.  She was beginning to look a little “portly” and we thought that after the haircut she might lose a little of the portlyness but no – she’s still looking a little on the chubbyside and now nothing to hide under!  As it’s getting hot I’m sure that like us she’ll not feel like eating so much and will lose the “Winter Layer”.  We’ll see – if not I see an enforced diet for the winter months.