Sunday, 15 January 2012

A Fine Day for a Friday...

Last night we went to bed and suddenly heard a strange knocking at our bedroom door.  Our bedroom has two doors - one to the outside world and T&V corner - the other out to the hallway and the main door between the buildings.  This knocking was at the door to the outside world and we were a bit concerned.  As we had walked between the buildings to bed we had seen a car stopped at the end of the new road - perhaps the knocking was someone who had broken down?  John got up, put the outside light on, and opened the main bedroom door so that he wouldn't come face to face with whoever or whatever was outside...

...on opening the door in shot Chivers and Minnie Mou who had decided that they fancied sleeping on our bed last night and had been knocking to come in - they have never done that before and we were amazed - in they came - played about for ten minutes of so and then settled down - Chivers laid out between us and Minnie asleep on John's head like our old cat Pinky used to do.  There they remained until John answered a call of nature and at that point they chose to go outside.

Today was a beautiful day and I got up and got some washing on early and John decided to put another couple of layers of gunk on the flat roof as the forecast is good for today and tomorrow.  Chivers cried and cried to get up onto the roof and so John got him to jump up onto his shoulders from the pump house and carried him up the ladder.

From the flat roof Chivers branched out on his own and ended up on top of our bedroom - not sure if he is trying to check the time or what!  The only trouble is having got up there he wasnt quite so sure how to get back down.

John kept calling him and calling him and eventually he managed to find his way across on of the beams on the 'conservatory' but not before he had tried walking across the polythene - which he didn't like because it didn't feel rigid and he was getting his feet wet!!

Today was going to be a DIY day as it was the first opportunity in ages not to be confined to the lounge.  Owning a Cypriot property is a challenge as they are no where near built as well as houses in England (including married quarters amazingly).  Single skinned, no double glazing and no damp proof course is apparently fairly normal and looking at the new house being built down the road that is true.  

The thing is not to get too worried about it and just deal with problems as they arise.  Today I was going to deal with the walls in the bedroom.  You get something like 'salt' breaking through the plaster so the paint bubbles - we treated a lot when we first arrived but what with living in the house and the weather etc it has come back in a couple of places although amazingly not anything like as bad as we expected and bearing in mind that we had rain pouring in through the bedroom window the other day we had expected it to be much worse.  I rubbed down all the rough patches and treated them with a solution of UPVA which I will paint over tomorrow when it is all dry.

My second job was to strip the 'downstairs' toilet door and surround of paint.  This is where we have had the termite infestation which seems to have disappeared and so now we need to do something to repair the damage.  We are also going to take down the tongue and groove and insulate behind it then put it back again.  

This toilet gets absolutely freezing and has a tendency to harbour damp so some insulation might help with this.  I hadn't intended to strip the door just the surround but some stripper got on the door and we could see that it had been covered with a rather nasty varnish and would look better without it.

During the course of today Jeanette's husband Graham pitched up with the dehumidifier which we hope will be our saviour.  Today was a prime example of the problem that we face, the back door and the kitchen door and the kitchen window were absolutely sopping this morning.  

Last night we saw that the temperature outside at 8.00pm was only 4 degrees and of course the temperature inside was considerably more than that.  We also noted that the humidity inside peaked at 80-odd percent meaning that there was a lot of moisture in the air that hits the cold doors and window frames and then condenses.  

The general consensus on the web was that a humidifier was the answer and so we felt we had to (as John would say) bite the bullet and get one.  Graham was brilliant giving us lots of advice on what we can do without using the dehumidifier and then on how to get the best out of the unit.  Transaction done we parked the unit in the bedroom building for the day and then moved it into the kitchen to do its stuff overnight.

We had quite a lot of post today and fortunately some of the mislaid post from before Christmas is beginning to filter through so we had a lovely present from Laura and Mark which was a beautiful cribbage set together with some odds and sods they had kindly sent over for us.  These were all wrapped up in a copy of the Western Gazette which was our local 'janner' newspaper in Yeovil.  I am going to savour reading that even if it is month old!

I also received the wicks I had ordered so that I could make my own candles from the copious amount of wax that is left when candles give up the ghost.  This is my first attempt - it will probably cost me a fortune trying to melt the old wax in the microwave but I don't care - I hate to waste anything and you never know they might just turn out to be ok. Watch out Mum - guess what you will be getting for your birthday!

John spent the day on the flat roof - putting on coats of the sealant and then rerouting the guttering so that it flows down the drainage hole more effectively.  From this vantage point he could see that there has been considerably more snow up on the Troodos and the mountains are looking fantastic with the last of the afternoon sun highlighting the peaks.  At least we can see from here if there is snow to be seen and so we will be able to decided whether or not a trip up the Troodos is in order when Vix is here in February.

One last photograph for today - the boyser has had a day of discovery now that he has been up on the roof.  He can't manage it on his own just yet as he hasn't worked out how to climb the metal ladder we have in place so he cries and cries for John to provide him with a lift.  It has all been very tiring for him and so this afternoon he flaked out in the 'conservatory' to mull over his experiences!  He is so beautiful I could just eat him!


1 comment:

  1. troodos mountain and chivers pie cant wait - hes so cute i could eat him tooooo.

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