We’re done!

At least, the builders are done – we still have to finish the painting which we will no doubt put off for a while until the temperatures cool down a bit. We don’t fancy painting in 35°, especially if we aren’t getting paid for it.

Yesterday was a last push for the finish – four guys here again in the afternoon until leaving at 8pm. There were a couple of mishaps – Lone Builder broke our outdoor light on his way down when he fell which we’ll need to replace and the big slab of stone that will be our new front door step also broke as it was being put in place. Abilio will come back at some point to replace that and do a final check over once the pointing/rendering has dried more, but the step is serviceable in the meantime.

We spent this morning sweeping & cleaning and putting everything back where it should be.

We’ve finally got our sink in place – we bought it three years ago and it’s just been sitting in the garden since. Rather than having a waste water pipe, we just have a bucket under the drain hole so we can reuse water on the garden. It hasn’t rained since the middle of June and we need all the water we can get.

We’ve been pleased to see that our wildlife seems unperturbed by all the goings on. Juta disturbed a ladder snake in the garden yesterday – they are harmless but a decent size (about 1m) and its hiss gave her quite a fright. Once she was out of the way, it took itself off through a hole in the garden wall. We had geckos on the house wall bug-hunting last night and when David started sweeping out the dog kennel this morning, he found two young toads under the timber flooring so he decided to leave them alone (good excuse not to sweep out the dog kennel if you ask me). Abilio had asked if we wanted the walls of the garden, annexe & wood store fixed up but we are going to leave them just as they are – they provide homes for all kinds of creatures that are perfectly welcome in our garden. Just not in our house.