The car with the missing horses

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Paul

I am back in Galicia and back to the place which is feeling increasingly like ‘home’.

I landed to find glorious sun on my balding, admittedly some would say bald, head and temperatures that were nudging towards twenty degrees centigrade.

I made the small mistake of booking a car rental with Hertz, who are situated at the entrance to the airport which is about 500m from the arrivals terminal at Asturias. They had sent me instructions to go to a meeting point and wait for a mini-bus but I couldn’t be bothered with the hassle, and decided to walk there in the glorious sunshine.

The lady behind the desk wasn’t impressed as her colleague was waiting for me at the terminal, so I elected to try and speak to her in Spanish and rescue my reputation.

carhire20130108My new thrifty self had found a bargain, a bit smaller than I’d normally hire, but nonetheless a bargain. I was offered a choice, but sadly no upgrade, of; Fiesta, Corsa or Ibiza. I opted for Fiesta, which it turns out is a lovely metallic blue. Once on the road it took very little time for me to regret my penny pinching. I suspect that half of the cars sixty horses (they make cars with just 60hp?) are out grazing, because they aren’t under my right foot and the 0-100 km h acceleration would be best measured on a calendar.

If I do get caught speeding (again) in this hire car I deserve a medal and a letter from the King, rather than a ticket.

I couldn’t resist going straight to the house to check on progress and I can’t deny that the lack of doors and windows was initially a bit of a disappointment.

halltiles20130108Although the place is not watertight the builders have achieved quite a lot during my two week absence. The bathroom is now fully tiled, as is the whole of the downstairs floor with the exception of the porch. The upstairs floor has screed, and the concrete base is there for the ‘wood store come boiler house’ that is been built on the gable end near the road.

The electricians men were also there putting in the kilometres of cabling which is necessary for the uprated electrics, although the feed has not yet been modified to take it underground from the overhead pole on the edge of the land.

We really are getting very close now and I left much happier than I arrived. Tomorrows’ task will be to see what is happening with the doors and windows. Hopefully they will be arriving tomorrow, perfectly timed for my return.

But I’ll not hold my breath.

Finally, a quick ‘get well soon’ to my lovely Aunty Pat who I know reads my blogs. I hope that they go some way to keeping you entertained while you recuperate.

 

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2013: My year of thrift

Posted on January 2, 2013 by Paul

Rather than make a New Years resolution ‘per se’ I have decided instead to adopt a word and try ensure that it underlies and governs my every action and deed in 2013.

That word is ‘thrift’. In short I am going to become tight, frugal, mean, scrimpy, penny-pinching, stingy and parsimonious. I am sure that some people already think that I am all of the above, but 2013 is going to see me excel.

At the end of last year we authorised around €6,000 of additional spend on the barn which we’d not originally budgeted for. This included; uprated electricals, improved flooring materials, a more expensive bathroom, and the building of a wood store. We’d already spent more than we’d hoped on the barn conversion, especially when you bear in mind that the main project (the big house) is where our cash should really be going, and with me spending more time in Spain and not in the UK doing my day job, cutting costs is going to be key.

I’ve started as I mean to go on, hunting for travel bargains for my next trip to Galicia on the 8th January where I will stay until Amanda joins me on the 22nd with us both returning to the UK together on the 27th. Hopefully this will be the trip which sees the barn reach habitable status.

There will be three elements to the trip and I think that I’ve done my utmost to keep the costs low on all three.

  1. EasyJet prices vary, we all know that, but there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to how and when. I’ve decided that the best strategy is to book as early as you can and when I booked just before Christmas I paid £66.98 for the return trip, The same flight is now selling for £70.98, so I’m £4 to the good.
  2. As I am flying out on my own, and not wanting to pay the high car parking costs at Stansted, I needed to book the train. I looked at the prices for a single from Huddersfield to Stansted Airport and the cheapest was £82.70, which seemed extortionate. I tried the same fare from Leeds to Stansted and it was £82.00, saving me 70p but meaning Amanda would have to give me a lift. Not great I thought, but at least a saving. I then had the idea of separately booking Huddersfield – Leeds, Leeds – Peterborough, and Peterborough to Stansted. Three separate journeys came to £31.70. I don’t pretend to understand this, the trains are the same, the times are the same, but the journey is £51 cheaper when each leg is booked separately. Crazy.
  3. Finally, I need a car while I am in Spain (19 days) so checked on the car hire prices just before Christmas. The best deal I found was for a Ford Focus for £182.00 but thought I’d sit tight for the inevitable post-Christmas sales. Sure enough I received an e-voucher for 20.13 percent off the price so I went to the site to get my £36 off. But the scallywags had increased the prices so that even after the discount the car was more expensive than it had been before Christmas. More shopping around and I found a Hertz voucher online which gave me 33 percent off their range and I managed to secure an equivalent car for £147.13, saving another £34.87.

So, on the three elements of my trip, a little shopping around saved me a grand total of £89.87, leaving me feeling pretty ‘thrifty’. 

I might have to treat myself to a bottle of 60 cents local red wine when I get back, just to celebrate.

 

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The Christmas wind down begins

Posted on December 18, 2012 by Paul

From the lack of activity up at the barn it seems that the Christmas holidays have started early for Facundos men. Since Sunday I have only seen the soon to be Ukraine bound Roma, who has been cleaning and tidying but definitely not constructing.

It could be that nothing more can be done until the windows and doors are installed, or it could be that they are all off finishing up a different job before winter truly sets in.

I did manage a long conversation with whistling Roma about his impending 4,500 km and fifty hour journey from A Pontenova to Donets’ka Oblast, in a fifteen year old Peugeot 205. As a non-native Spanish speaker he is pretty easy for me to communicate with as our restricted dictionaries have many points of confluence. I did try and reason with him about flying, but it seems that he’ll be loaded down with contraband of some description, which sounds as though it will make the gruelling journey financially worthwhile.

scummycatWhile at the house I managed to get an incriminating photograph of Miro and Elenas ‘scummy’ cat who at first glance seems very respectable, well groomed, and although curious, not exactly friendly. But his classy demenour hides a far darker side. For when he thinks that no-one is looking he turns into a filthy ‘dumpster diver’.

He won’t be allowed in our house when it has its doors and windows!

After a couple of Portsmouth/Santander ferries were cancelled over the weekend I’ve been keeping an eye on the latest status on the internet. I even ‘live chatted’ to a nice lady at Brittainy Ferries yesterday and it looks as though I’ll be okay for my departure on Thursday teatime.

The forecast for the Bay of Biscay is for 6m waves and a 6m swell, which both sound as though they could be quite entertaining. Last weekends sailings were cancelled with 7m waves and swell, so it sounds like we’re still borderline.

originallogThe last couple of days of near solitude have been spent up at the house polishing my wood.

If you remember, this was the log which I picked out in October and which has gone through; cutting, sanding (for hours), and oiling with Tung Oil imported from Germany. Over the last day bathroomworktop20121218I have polished it with a lovely tin of beeswax which Stephen and Kay so generously gave me when I crashed their beautiful (rental) house in Trabada on the premise of delivering a Christmas card, but then also managing to wangle a superb dinner. They had previously got the wax to treat their newly laid wooden floors but had a change of plans, and after I’d mentioned my dilemma about various different beeswax recipies, and how to cook them, they offered me a tin.

It’s done a great job and brought the wood up perfectly, I think I just need a bit more elbow grease to get it from a dull gloss to a high gloss finish, but that can happen once it is in situ.

The worktop is now ready for installation by Facundos workers and sits in what used to be the milking stalls in the big house, in kit form with its oiled and polished lats.

I just need one of them on site so I can explain what I want them to do.

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Can’t see the wood for the Prix

Posted on December 15, 2012 by Paul

Yesterdays weather was dreadful.

Howling wind and what started out as a nasty steady drizzle had become a fully fledged monsoon by mid-afternoon. By the time I’d got home and spend a couple of hours trying to dry out my one pair of work jeans and work fleece by holding them in-front of my pathetic little halogen heater, I was in no mood to blog (as I’d promised) about Thursdays trip to the carpenters in La Roda.

firewall121214Friday had been a little productive, despite the weather, although the first job when arriving at the house was to repair one of the doors to the main house which had broken during the overnight gales. In the afternoon I spent an hour working with the ‘worker who I don’t understand…not a single word’ in selecting some old roof tiles to use to cap a wall which he has built by the staircase and which will be the backdrop for the wood burner.

After we’d finished with installing the capping stones, he showed me an old leather bound bible, magicked from a blue carrier bag, the type that chinese takeaways come in. Through our mutual Spanish intermediary Angel, asked me what language it was in. ‘Latin‘, was my answer, feeling quite chuffed with myself, and he then asked how old it was.

Having already seen the date in roman numerals (MDCCCXIX) on the third page of the book, I thought it was a trick question. ‘1819‘ I responded which prompted the kind of furrowed brow you would expect from someone who thought it was a lot older, and whom I’d now offended. ‘Is it valuable‘, he asked.

As I was already ‘in for a penny’ I thought it ‘might as well be a pound’,  ‘I doubt it‘ I responded, Angel doing a sterling job with the words. What makes me a bibliophile?, I thought to myself, as he put the bible back in its takeaway bag and went away to sulk.

Thursday had been a busy day, and you will have already read about the digger and the septic tank. In the morning I’d decided to go to La Roda to check on the windows and doors and re-assure myself that they were actually in production.

Alessandro, the man who suffered from embarrassing wet corduroy back in October, wasn’t there so his wife took me into the workshop (factory) to show me where they were up to. It was a good job I had gone because there were questions to answer on stain colour, shutter style, and door furniture. It turned out that they would have picked the opposite of what we like, had they been left to their own devices.

windowsatcarpentersdoorlatchdoorhinge

After about twenty minutes of dicussion Alessandro turned up, whether by chance or summoned by his wife, but rather than discuss the windows all he wanted to do was talk about motor racing, in particular Formula 1.

What followed was ten minutes of back and forth word association; Hamilton, Mercedes, McClaren, Button, Vettel, Alonso, Mansell, Senna, Prost, etc. Then we laughed, shook hands, and I departed, hoping that his wife had got a good memory for what we’d discussed prior to her husbands arrival.

At eight o’clock that night my phone rang, it was Alessandro, and he wanted to double check the details!

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A place for poo

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Paul

So much has happened today I can’t fit it all into one blog, so this mornings excursion to the carpenters in La Roda will have to wait until tomorrow.

I’d decided to treat myself to fifteen extra minutes in bed before my planned trip to the coast to check on the progress of the windows, but the still ‘badly infected’ Facundo had other ideas. He rang me at some ungodly hour under the pretense of checking a measurement for an internal wall, but what really he wanted to tell me, was that today was the day that the big excavator was going to be on-site.

I changed my plans and headed to the house, a day watching a digger was way too much for me to resist, especially as it was tearing up our land to clear a channel for the drains and to install the septic tank.

When I got to the barn there was no sign, and the guys working on the now ‘confirmed measurement’ internal wall were aware of the diggers likely arrival but had no idea when. I graciously accepted a coffee of my new friend Joaquín (the plasterer) who brews it from water taken from the water-butt on a small gas fire. It has the consistency of treacle and it blows your socks off!

An hour later there was still no hint of a diggers appearance so as it was cold and raining I reverted to my original plan and set off to visit my windows and doors, call at the bank, and so a bit of food shopping. I rushed around my three ports of call, and made it back to the barn by 12:30, but still no sign of the digger.

At 12:45 it arrived, was unloaded and then everyone went to lunch.

I wasn’t going to miss the action and ensured that I was back at the barn for 14:15 to see what action would unfold. I have to say that I was incredibly impressed with the amount of work that one man and his machine can accomplish in just four hours. For that is all that it took for him to dig a fifty metre trench, fell three trees, bury the septic tank and then cover over his tracks.

The bucket was like an arm, picking up just what he wanted, gouging out rock like a handful of popcorn, and sweeping tonnes of soil and debris as though brushing off dust. He was a man totally in tune with his machine.

Here is what he achieved between 14:15 and 18:15 (costing me just four hours of man and machine).

diggerarrivesdiggerbeforehanddiggerjuststarteddiggerfirstpipediggerpipesdiggerfinished

Miro, our next-door-but-one neighbour had informed me a couple of weeks ago that his water supply came across our land, which was the first we knew about it. As soon as he heard the machine, he came up to the house to make sure that we didn’t cut through it, and cut him off.

But of course we did! One thin plastic pipe was no match for five tonnes of digger.

Angel, then the new worker ‘whose name I don’t know and am too afraid to ask’, and then Facundo all got their ears bent by a quite agitated Miro. To me he just rolled his eyes, and I smiled back, I was on his side. Fortunately, pipework and connectors were magically summoned from the local town and the repair effected, and Miro calmed down a little.

We now have all the necessary pipework in place for the bathroom, kitchen and guttering drains. I feel that today, of all the days so far this building season, we’ve made real progress.

An added bonus is that the removal of the three trees has improved the view no end, and they will give me chance to get my wood pile off to a good start, once I’ve had my basic chainsaw operator training from Neil.

But that will be another story, providing I still have the limbs to type with.

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