My weekends distractions; Amanda, my brother Ian, and his wife Karen meant that I momentarily took my eagle eyes off the redevelopment. We all visited site on Saturday but I was too busy showing my visitors around to take photos, although it didn’t go unnoticed that work was progressing apace on the grain store.
While I have been living here I have learned that what I thought was our hórreo is actually our cabazo. It’s a minor technical difference and amongst the uneducated (a group from which I am trying desperately to escape, one word at a time) the words hórreo and cabazo seem almost interchangeable.
Technically, a cabazo is oblong, whereas an hórreo is square. They both have the same use, are constructed in the same way using the same materials, and they are both protected (listed) buildings on a register of the Galician Patrimonio (the Heritage department).
On Saturday the old roof had been removed and was now just a pile of broken slates on the road through the houses. The old rotten beams had been replaced with hand carved chestnut and a big pile of chestnut boards was awaiting fitting.
After safely depositing the hire car in Lugo, doing a bit of shopping (you can tell where your priorities lie when a few tools from the hardware shop come to double what you spend on a weeks food) and wandering glazed eyed through the Spanish version of Comet, I thought I’d better stop up at the house on the way back to Taramundi and snap a couple of photos before they finish it and I have no tale to tell.
All the beams are now in place and that pile of chestnut boards has been turned into the new ceiling.
The cabazo from inside...
Angel has been hard at work tiling the west facing roof and I reckon that he’ll have it finished in a couple of days. Arturo has even cut the beautiful interlocking tiles which will form the ‘stegosaurus back’ ridge (you’ll see what I mean when you see it in a couple of days) and which are one of the works from the redevelopment that personally I can’t wait to see.
...and outside
I now just need to convince the architect that we should be able to install a waist-high balustrade and spindles on the west facing side so we can put a table and chairs in there and catch the last rays of the days sun with a nice glass of local red and a slice of tortilla Española or some cabrales and bread.