Firstly my apologies for the extended pause in my ramblings , now to bring you upto date.
Well I didn't buy with the beer goggles on but we did miss a few minor things so have spent the first few days getting a feel for the place and doing a few repairs.
Starting with a cry from the lovely wife of where's the hot water ?? Investigation saw me sat on the patio with the sun on my back cleaning out the pilot on the water heater, back when I used to do these things for a living it was rarely in the sun often in the snow or rain so this was a present trip down memory lane.
Then on to the door we never used when viewing , it's no surprise that this is binding on the tiles and the lock is sticking on the reja gate, off with the door and out with the planer , the lovely wife thought I was mad bringing my tools with us but I had an idea that the pipe and slippers would not feature highly in my retirement.
That done it was time to strip the lock and straighten the lever that actuate's the latch after the bolt has been opened , it looks like the latch slide was full of grit and the leverage from the key had bent the lever causing it to jump the pivot and seize the lock !
In the sitting room there are four pair of wall lights and the lovely wife asked me to remove the glass shades and wash them , then Hoover out the flies . Trying the lights before I disturbed them I got a surprise , the bulbs were orange . Checking around found that the lights were a mixture of UK and euro fittings and all were old style high energy.
The next day as we travelled over loaded down with boxes the lovely wife managed to burn off 85€ on low energy light bulbs - so as to save money ? Well at least there all white .
So shades washed , flies hoovered I fitted the bulbs , the disturbance causing one of them to stop working , a deeper look found a loose neutral in the fitting . Could really do with a handy man , oh yeh that's my new job .
As you turn out of the rambler and up the drive there is a large fig tree half tipped over in the flood of 2012 , then for good measure there's a almond tree wedged under it along with a couple of tonnes of rubble and bamboo. Really it's a job for a JCB but the fig is partially blocking the drive so needs sorting soon.
Looking around the place there are a good number of dead and fallen almond trees so off to the shop for a chainsaw , nothing too big about the size used in those films in Texas should be ok
The next day , new toy , tool in hand it was time to tackle the fig tree . But by the time we had loaded up again with boxes of stuff , the same stuff we spent all that time packing and storing earlier and unloaded and stored it all again for the third time it was mid afternoon and surprisingly warm , naïvely we set about the task of cutting back the major part of the fig tree .
Cutting back dozens of suckers and bamboo just to be able to get near the main trunk and the offending overhead branches , cutting and trimming so as to move one pile of rubbish on to another pile , just out of the way . The rocks packed around the base formed a pile as big as a small car and after a year and a half of sun are baked into a solid mass.
Just as we were hoping the other one would suggest we pack it in, now we can get up the drive without taking the paint off, our new neighbour from down the rambler pulled up to say hello, he said nothing but you could tell he thought we were insane ! Adding that he was off home for lunch and a sit in the court yard for a while , I explained were trying to find the end of the drive , well it is in there, it USED to look very tidy before the flood , I foolishly promised it would again ONE day !
When he continued along his way we decided that the smart move would be to regroup and attack another day ( pack it in and have a beer ) so we now have a pile of rocks and mud with half a fig tree growing out as one gate post and a pile of sticks and branches as the other .
After receiving wild prices for installing the 1.9m satellite dish with its 35m underground cable run culminating with the mini version of the channel tunnel through the wall it was decided to split the work and allow the sky guy do the clever bits and we would drill the hole and dig the ditch for the ducting .
Fearing the digging , the lovely wife suggested that I started with the hole in the wall , I have a 600mm long drill that I thought would be just the job as the wall at the front door is about that thickness . So out with the SDS and it made short work of putting in a 20 x 600 hole in the gable wall , unfortunately it was not to be seen on the outside nor could you feel much of a vibration in the general area. Mmm .
After nipping on line to price up longer drills it was time for a coffee and a think as a 100€ for a drill is not an option. It was decided after much debate and encouragement from the lady wife that we could just measure it !
Easy , not , due to the difference in the floor and outside and the fact that the quirky ness that attracted us is now fighting against us with nothing being level or square we had to take a datum line from the open window and using a level draw a line around from the inside and the out the window and around the outside to mark the spot with an X .
With little confidence I drilled again 600mm the other way nothing , so inside with a bamboo cane ( it has it's uses , hole prodder as well as kindling ) one thing our prodding showed was that the hole was down hill a bit , not much but if the wall is over a metre thick it would add up , so out side again down a 100mm and another go , bingo our paths crossed , as I pulled the drill out the hole collapsed behind it leaving a trickle of sand running out of the wall . After a few minutes of drilling and rodding with bamboo canes we had a hole , now so long the sleeve pipe I had was ridiculously short , so I substituted it for some irrigation pipe and the job was done 1150mm or 4ft near enough .
The joke now is , we sit looking at the black pipe sticking out of the living room wall waiting for the telly to be piped in .
The next day we set about the digging and in comparison to the wall it went rather well the mattock making short work of the loose sandy ground . It wasn't long before we had the trench dug and the ducting buried. I used a vacuum to suck the string through with a tissue tied on worked great , rather satisfying watching the string whizz off the reel and into the duct . All we need now is the clever bit and the lovely wife can be reunited with live soaps , rather than internet or re runs on ITV2 . Once more the world will be on its axis.
The following day we agreed to tackle a job that I had been itching to get to , bang in front of the cortijo was a very large grape vine frame made out of 40 x 50 steel tube all welded and woven with wire, the grape vine ? Still there but dry and dead the main stem no longer reaching the ground . The vine was either once, very impressive or the builder very ambitious because at 18m x 3m x 3m and painted beige it was a eye sore , turning the view from the front windows into a sea of steel poles .
So after loading and unloading more of our stuff on to the new pile of boxes ( what is surprising but predicted by some is how many of the boxes are still sporting their tie wrap seals , did we really need them ? ) it was time to attack and after a couple of hours with the grinder and cutting disc's it was a pile of poles and the true view was revealed , a small victory a little piece of Andalucia tamed , it might not seem much but on a task this massive I'll take every win.
The next day after the usual unloading we decided to try out the wood burner in the living room as the day was grey and cool 18c LOL ( really the lovely wife being used to open fires all her childhood and craving a good warm has been looking for a chance ) as instructed by Colin we used the bamboo from the rambler as kindling no need for paper and a sack of logs from the garage , Ironic really buying logs when we now have so many dead dry trees , but away it went much faster than I expected a fierce roar and a crackle even with the door shut . The burner is big no doubt recovered from the titanic as it could have taken the bag of logs unopened I'm sure ! The first 4 logs were gone In Under 40 mins , this could get expensive , as I reloaded I spotted that the door was not closing tight so allowing the air to draw around it and create the furnace effect , after adjusting the latch with a hammer the rate of burn seemed more normal and not as likely to take the back out of the thing .
We settled down with a pot of tea and just enjoyed the heat , the first proper warm since last summer.
Later that week we had a trip back to hell, sorry Ikea in Murcia the only way this trip was any better than the last was that it is now 45 mins nearer each way LOL . I made all the same mistakes as last time , wrong exit , wrong lane etc etc even managing to turn down a cycle path whilst trying to negotiate the Kentucky car park ! I said last time never again and I think I mean it this time , but we do need a kitchen ?
As the weather warmed up and somebody flicked the summer switch on the pool hit 20c , 3c higher than our last swim so in we went able to restart our daily swim . We're now at 22c and it's not quite a shock when you get in , we need to make the most if it as at the end of the month we hand the keys back and will be without whilst we have ours built at the cortijo .
The other day whilst wandering amongst the almonds looking at how much dead wood there is to remove I spotted a pair of European bee catchers sat on top of the pile of fig branches we had cut a couple of weeks before , I didn't know what they were at the time but being so resplendent in their bright blue plumes and Long pincer like beaks they really stood out against the drabness of the rambler bank. After telling the lovely wife we looked them up on the web , they migrate from Africa each summer and there are around 100,000 pairs in Spain . We have since seen them Again and I think they are nesting in the bank across from our drive , a real treat to watch.
I could write a whole post about our builder selection but I don't want to get too depressed or start ranting , non the less we haven't even ordered a nail yet and were fed up with them not listening , having to re explain our needs every time we meet only to be told that's not in the original quote so the search is on for new builders we have a front runner who we were told is very good but expensive , however so far he has made a good business like impression and price wise he's not the dearest on a like for like specification comparison.
We are now at the end of boxes , just beds and clothes we have a man with a van booked and our time in " la villa defectuoso " is drawing to a close all that remains is the last move and a return to clean up probably in a vein attempt to get our 850€ deposit back , who knows the neigh Sayers could be wrong !