Friday

Not going to say too much about today except that everything but everything is covered in dust and the cats are doing their best to spread it all around the house.  There is little point in trying to do much about it until the works have been completed and after today we will have a heady mix of dust and concrete to deal with.

Evidence of catty footprints are everywhere - my poor suite is taking a right old hammering and I think in the spring I may have to call in one of the upholstery cleaning firms so rescue it.

I also have windows which are covered in all sorts of stuff ranging from some sort of brown paint flecks which are seemingly immovable to a wash of cement.  The men know about this and say they will get them polished at the end - thank god for that!

Today was the day when the cement was definitely arriving and arriving on time - Ed was meeting the wagon and driving up in convoy so there was no excuse that they could not find the house.  It is a scary thing having one of those elephants trunks coming over the top of the house being controlled by a man in shades stood on our wall and who said about two words throughout the whole of the proceedings which took a couple of hours.  It didn't go exactly to plan as the cement started to breach the shuttering for the steps in the pool so that bit will have to be completed by hand and once again my plants got a hammering because as the cement was being poured it had to be dealt with as quickly as possible so foot placement was not very high on the agenda.  I have made a slide show of the arrival of the cement and its pouring so you can see what I mean.

Once the men had gone I was able to get down to pick up Kenny who has been poorly and who has had to have the suspension sorted - this is my Christmas present as it wasn't a cheap fix and now it needs to have the tracking done as a result.

Our reward for what was a bit of a traumatic day was to light the fire as it was blooming freezing this evening - about 6 degrees I think which is cold in anyone's book.  It is just so lovely to have the fire lit as it warms the whole room and feels like central heating.  The cats obviously found it too warm as only Charlie ventured in for a while to sit on the sofa.   John is now much better at getting it to a nice ticking over state and so we probably only burned about three real sized logs all night - the rest was kindling and rubbish.

Our second reward was a special tea - it being Friday night which we like to spend together at home with something nice to eat and something good to watch on the TV.  Tonight we made our own version of home-made pizzas but used ciabatta rolls that we split open.  I made a home-made tomato, onion and basil base which was then covered with cheddar cheese.  John then had his version of a meat feast with pepperoni, chorizo and parma ham which was then covered with roasted red peppers and mozzarella and then baked in the oven for a short while until the cheese melted.  Mine was slightly different with the tomato base and cheese then figs, basil, parma ham, roasted red peppers and mozzarella.

I served it with a salad of rocket, bazil and pea leaves, orange slices, tomato and onion and we washed it down with the remainder of the 10 litre carton of Kolios Wine which has been sitting around for a while.  No workmen tomorrow thank goodness but a million and one other things that need our attention and as the men are back on Monday we need to try and get them done this weekend.