My birthday present and Christmas present for the next 20 years arrived today in the form of replacement sofits, fascias and guttering. I have to say that they weren't very high on my letter to Santa in fact shoes, clothes, foreign holidays and/or weekends away were more what I had in mind but hey, needs must as they say! We just wish we had known that this aluminium stuff was available a couple of weeks ago before John risked life and limb hanging from the roof trying to stain the wood that we have now replaced.
As we expect to stay at Clampettsvilla 10b for the remainder of our days we have decided to invest our money into making it the best that we can - after all the money isn't really doing much in the bank! We had worked out that the cost of the aluminium work (which hopefully will last till the end of our days) was not a lot more than the cost of replacing the wood so it was a bit of a no brainer and when people come back from their lovely holidays away I will be able to think "so what I have aluminium sofits, fascia and guttering!"
There was quite a lot of preparation work to be done before the guys arrived at 8.00am The biggest concern was the conservatory roof as the men would have to be walking or lying on it in order to reach the eaves of the two buildings. We couldn't afford for any of the glass to shatter and to be honest we had no idea exactly how strong it was so John put up props to help support in underneath and some floating raft like structures on the top to help spread the weight. As it happened this all worked beautifully and another time we would have much less concern about someone being up there - this is good because we want to paint the outside in the autumn.
The men had to be able to span the pool as well - it is a bit of a shame because John has got the water looking and feeling perfect and once the old wood fascias were taken down all sorts of crap came down with it - in fact it was only a matter of minutes before the birds started to try and build nests up there again.
Haris arrived with his two workers at 8.00am as promised and after a conversation with John about how he wanted the finish to look (we wanted to retain the edge of our terracotta tiles) and a look at how to tackle the conservatory area they started.
It was possibly the hottest day of the year so far but the three of them worked solidly right through the day without stopping. In fact I went off to Emba for pickleball and came back and they were still hard at it.
They eventually finished at 5.15pm having cleared up most of their bits and pieces and with John following on behind to ensure that all the small sharp bits of aluminium offcuts were bagged and put in the bin.
John was pretty pleased with the work and he said he thought they had really earned their money. We couldn't even really get them to stop for some water. It had been a long hot and hard day for them but with a couple of the other owners on the estate interested they may well get some more business up here as a result.
We were out this evening with John and Susan and Irene and Dennis. This was John and Susan's treat by way of a thank-you for looking after their house and their cat whilst they were back in the UK and we were dining at Fitos's which is a bit of a favourite.
The weather is warm enough up here to be able to eat outside - the downside is that at 6.00pm when we arrived the vine flies were out in force and causing us all sorts of problems. Johanna came with some novel fly deterrents but in the end we had to sit it out because as the sun went down the flies disappeared.
As we expect to stay at Clampettsvilla 10b for the remainder of our days we have decided to invest our money into making it the best that we can - after all the money isn't really doing much in the bank! We had worked out that the cost of the aluminium work (which hopefully will last till the end of our days) was not a lot more than the cost of replacing the wood so it was a bit of a no brainer and when people come back from their lovely holidays away I will be able to think "so what I have aluminium sofits, fascia and guttering!"
There was quite a lot of preparation work to be done before the guys arrived at 8.00am The biggest concern was the conservatory roof as the men would have to be walking or lying on it in order to reach the eaves of the two buildings. We couldn't afford for any of the glass to shatter and to be honest we had no idea exactly how strong it was so John put up props to help support in underneath and some floating raft like structures on the top to help spread the weight. As it happened this all worked beautifully and another time we would have much less concern about someone being up there - this is good because we want to paint the outside in the autumn.
The men had to be able to span the pool as well - it is a bit of a shame because John has got the water looking and feeling perfect and once the old wood fascias were taken down all sorts of crap came down with it - in fact it was only a matter of minutes before the birds started to try and build nests up there again.
Haris arrived with his two workers at 8.00am as promised and after a conversation with John about how he wanted the finish to look (we wanted to retain the edge of our terracotta tiles) and a look at how to tackle the conservatory area they started.It was possibly the hottest day of the year so far but the three of them worked solidly right through the day without stopping. In fact I went off to Emba for pickleball and came back and they were still hard at it.
They eventually finished at 5.15pm having cleared up most of their bits and pieces and with John following on behind to ensure that all the small sharp bits of aluminium offcuts were bagged and put in the bin.
John was pretty pleased with the work and he said he thought they had really earned their money. We couldn't even really get them to stop for some water. It had been a long hot and hard day for them but with a couple of the other owners on the estate interested they may well get some more business up here as a result.
We were out this evening with John and Susan and Irene and Dennis. This was John and Susan's treat by way of a thank-you for looking after their house and their cat whilst they were back in the UK and we were dining at Fitos's which is a bit of a favourite.
The weather is warm enough up here to be able to eat outside - the downside is that at 6.00pm when we arrived the vine flies were out in force and causing us all sorts of problems. Johanna came with some novel fly deterrents but in the end we had to sit it out because as the sun went down the flies disappeared.
As we were waiting for our food to be cooked John could not resist playing football with one of Johanna's sons. He had been playing on his own and lost his ball out on the main road so John went and rescued it and then got stuck in! I think he misses the opportunity to play!
The food was lovely - as always! Tonight Johanna had fish as an option so the girlies all plumped for Sea Bass which was cooked to perfection - the pork chops were massive and Dennis's sheftalia scrummy!!!
The food was lovely - as always! Tonight Johanna had fish as an option so the girlies all plumped for Sea Bass which was cooked to perfection - the pork chops were massive and Dennis's sheftalia scrummy!!!
We were treated to the most spectacular sunset before we left - another beautiful day is promised tomorrow - summer is most definitely here!
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