Last but not least. Were in and loving it.

Written Saturday 14-7-2007 published 25-7-2007, sorry, been off line again.
We’ve done it at last. Carlos came up on Thursday and finished nearly all of his work so that we were happy to declare that, subject to a hold back of €1000 for smallish jobs outstanding, we were happy to pay over the final payment in exchange for the key and to finally move into our lovely new home. Bella Solana (the house name) means ‘beautiful place in the sun‘. It is a good name for a beautiful house that we are very proud of having created.
So Friday the 13th (despite protestations from Elayne) and one year, less one week, since we came to Spain, we have paid for and moved into our new home. It was a token ’sleep in’ really because we have oodles of stuff in the caravan (as you can imagine after ten months of camping out) and the porta cabin, that we have to move up to the house.
This is therefore my very last blog. Congratulation to anyone, besides us, who has had the tenacity to stick with the blog for all 311 editions and entries, you deserve a medal or ticket to the nearest asylum.
We want as many of our friends and family to come to see us and Bella Solana as and when time, and conditions, permit, we are still only a phone call away.
On the blog we have tried to show all angles of this adventure, the frustrations, the joys, the fears, even the tears, and the delights. We hope that it has given a small flavour of what anyone can do if they are prepared to just say one, two, three ‘jump‘ and take a leap of faith.
Elayne and I thank all of our family and many friends, both in Spain and the rest of the world for their encouragement and support.
If you also have an idea to do a blog, do it and let us know so that we can share your story. It is not something that I thought that we would be able to do, until we started to do it and we found that we actually could. Not a bad bit of philosophy of life to finish on.
Please keep in touch, everyone, we are not deserting you, we are just not doing the blog anymore.
Lots of love from us both.
Elayne and Paul Fellowes.

Last evening Carlos arrived on site and finished the central heating electrics so that the plumber could finish and test that the C/H system is fully working. This morning, whilst we were out, Oscar the plumber arrived, got a front door key from Dario in Albox, and proceeded to test out the central heating system. After we came back he showed me that there was not enough water pressure to make it all work. The system, in the casita/boiler room is all electronically controlled and we will be able to use a radio controlled zapper from the house to switch the system on and off. Anyway the electronics, when switched on, have detected low water pressure and therefore will not activate the whole system. We are getting a larger water pump from Fran Marie (builders merchants) maybe tomorrow. Oscar said that he will then come and set it all up on Saturday if we have the pump. Carlos said that he will return tomorrow, Jueves, Thursday, to do a few final little bits. Job finished.
Funny that when Oscar had finished work today he asked me what he should do with the front door key that Dario took off site a while back. Dario, quite unnecessarily, had refused to let us have the key back until the final payment was made. I shrugged my shoulders at Oscar in a typical Spanish unhelpful manner and so he tried to ring Dario for guidance. He couldn’t get through to Dario so he shrugged his shoulders, anxious to be off to his next job, and left the key with us to look after.
We are rocking in the Taberno roads outside Lentisco’s tonight. Note, when any of our gang have folks over to stay (it’s the ‘in season’ just now) they all come up to the Wednesday evening dance at Lentisco‘s. It’s really good for us to meet family and friends and it makes a change for the hosts to have an evening out. At the last count and from what we gather, we will be a party of fifteen at our tables tonight. Total pandemonium but that’s the fun of it all. We usually put some money, probably €10, in a kitty for the drinks and we always end up with a surplus to carry over until the next meeting.
I intend to finish writing this blog when we move into Bella Solana as we will be too busy sorting the house and garden out for the next two or three years. I will write the final blog in a few days time but I will not remove the whole thing from the internet unless a publisher wishes to pay us loads of money to make it into a book or Sunday newspaper serial.
P.S Dario returned this evening to take possession of the key again. Hey Ho.

We have just had a nice email from our friends Neil and Gina Watson. N&G lived in Garforth near Leeds (Neil worked with me at Whiteley for lots of years and before that at the famous John Waddington‘s of Leeds, makers of Monopoly and Totopoly) and moved out to France for some of the ‘good life’ about twelve months ago. They have a lovely country house in St. Etienne du Bois in western France. Welcome to the blog Neil & Gina, that’s if you have found us yet.
Activity here on site at last today. Dario and the young lad Paco have spent time up here on site today. They seem to have been concentrating on the shutters (that weren’t shutting) and repairing the ruined marble thresholds, together with a few other bits and pieces. We will go up and have a look when they go home to see if it is all to our liking. If we can get then Carlos and the plumber up here, perhaps tomorrow, to finish their bits and pieces off, we could be ‘home and dry’ to quote a well known phrase or saying by the end of the week. Our thanks to Gill for her assistance.
It rained last night and this morning. The temperature dropped down to eighteen and I had to wear my long trousers and socks to go to Albox this morning. However the sun is back out now and it’s back to a more normal twenty six degrees with clear blue skies. It made a nice little cool interlude for us and gave us all a good nights sleep. The cats also seemed to appreciate the cool caravan this morning, although they popped out as usual as soon as we opened the door on our return.

Well, we thought that we’d be in the house by Wimbledon, but the Wimbledon circus has now been played and is gone for another year, together with the British Grand Prix. We talked with Gill, down at Mojacar, this morning to see if she can put a rocket under someone to get this house finished in time for Christmas perhaps? No one seems bothered about taking our money off us in exchange for a finished house, so it can stay in the UK earning some interest, until they do. Needless to say no one has been near us all this weekend and today.
We had a ‘FEB’ in Albox this morning, which cheered us up somewhat. We then shopped for water pipe fitments so that we can install another water pump when it arrives at the local DIY shop. This afternoon we pottered about in the heat, it must have been in the mid thirties. My electronic weather station has been having a funny turn today. One minute the pressure was reading 1005mb and the next it was reading 1035mb. I said to Elayne that we have just survived a cataclysmic tornado that neither of us saw or even felt. It must have been the builders driving past us, or maybe it is just the batteries.

Friday & Saturday 6th & 7th July

Friday 6-7-2007
As we have a busy day today, we went shopping last night. We set off at about half past six and returned to camp about eight o’clock. We found that the original plumber was sat in his car waiting for our return so that he could fit the gas water heater. No one bothered to tell us about this event, therefore we could not have anticipated his arrival. However it did mean that yesterday was not a complete ‘wash out’ as far as the house is concerned. The plumber ended up working until well after half past ten to finish the job. How civilised to have hot water in the house at last. It was last September down at El Pinar since we had this luxury.
Saturday 07-07-07
‘E’ Well here we are , another weekend is upon us, and we are still spending it in the caravan.
Neither the builder nor the kitchen/electrics man is showing the slightest interest in bringing this long drawn out project to a successful conclusion. Meantime, we sit and watch, and tear our hair out.
On a brighter note, the two lads who are building our garage have made great progress today, good job somebody has.
Yesterday our good friend Allen came up to install the water softener, and the water purifier for us. He was with us all day and has done a magnificent job. Many thanks Allen, we are very grateful to you,(and to Mags also).
Last night, as I couldn’t be bothered to cook, we went to El Rancho’s for a meal, and then back to Lentisco’s for a coffee and a lovely dessert. It was a warm, calm night, and a break for Paul, who had spent all the day working with Allen.,(and for me, I spent nearly all day watching the tennis, very tiring).

We had a lovely nights dancing at Lentisco’s last night. The evening was warm and there was no wind and we were with friends. We finally left for home at half past twelve.
Today we went to Taberno for petrol for the car and for the little genny. We then went to Pocicas and ordered €500 worth of oil for the central heating boiler. We asked if they could deliver it pronto and indeed it arrived this afternoon just after two, what good service. 715 litres for €500 at €0.70/ltr. We also got some diesel for the other genny so in total we spent nearly €600 on fuel just today.
As the day was cloudy and cool, just over twenty degrees, we also went down to Antas again and ordered the second lot of lounge hard furniture. It will be three to four weeks before it is delivered, but it will be worth the wait.
Today, on site has been noticeable by the total inactivity. So flipping near yet so flipping far.
Today has been a lot cooler than yesterday by about ten degrees, it has made a nice change not to have had to worry about the cats being shut in the caravan whilst we were out.

Not much to write about today.
We had an argument with the furniture people down in Antas this morning trying to recover our four hundred and fifty euros deposit from the crappy furniture that they sent and we rejected. Didn’t get any where at all, so I filed a complaint on them and I have been trying to send an email to their head office this afternoon. At the same time we returned to another furniture shop and took pictures and dimensions of another set of furniture. We like it and will return to order it perhaps on Friday.
On site Dario and his brother Jose called in for an hour and fixed some window glass. We have to get some central heating oil so that the boiler can be set up and tested. We are going to the petrol station in Pocicas tomorrow where we can buy it. We will buy €500 worth and this together with €350 worth of logs should see us through next winter and perhaps the one after that.
We are going out with our friends dancing tonight. The ambient temperature today, in the car, was 32 degrees and it was forty in parts of the caravan when we came back at lunch time, poor cats.

We’re nearly there, again. The second plumber (first one having been dismissed from project) has been up this morning and has connected nearly all sections of the house plumbing up, so that we have taps in the kitchen and bathrooms that all work. I had a pee in the family bathroom and then was able to flush the loo, real luxury and progress.
Just yesterday we became aware, for the very first time, that we needed to pay extra for a calor gas water heater. We were a little affronted, but now we learn that the price of the house includes one water heater and we chose to have a central heating boiler water heater installed in the casita, but of course the casita is too far away from the house for hot water use, thus we needed another one. That’s another 470€ up the spout.
The new tyre for the Mazda, BTW, cost 75€, not too bad. It was in a real mess and two large holes in it that you could put your fingers through. They have renewed the tyre and inspected the wheel and found that to be OK, thank goodness.
Another hot day with temperatures in the 31 degrees area. We are learning to stay in and watch Wimbledon at the hottest part of the day. We go out early morning before it gets too hot, then we watch Wimbledon, and then if we need to go out again, we go in the cooler evening. All rather funny but sensible.

Who would have imagined that we are now in July and still in the caravan. So many problems to sort out still, that we are both exhausted and could do with a holiday. We saw a new plumber today, for ten minutes, he is Juan and he might return to start work tomorrow (that’s not necessarily the day after today), but then again he might not.
Whilst we were driving back from Albox today, after looking at sofa beds, I misjudged a narrow bit of tarmac road down in a rambla and hit a large rock with the front off side wheel. There was an almighty bang and crash that I thought that the engine had fallen out of the car. Elayne called me a very religious name and then we came to a halt. The tyre had burst on impact and the wheel might or might not be a write off. We are on the ‘get you home tyre’ now, which it did, we just hope that it will also get us back down to Albox tomorrow (see above) again to get a new tyre and assess the wheel damage.
Good old Wimbledon is at least taking our minds off the house for a while.
Sorry that there are not many pictures just now but there is really not a lot happening that might be relevant to the blog. The campo is now crispy brown and spitefully spiky when you walk through the shrubbery. This is the hot summer terrain and it will stay this way for quite sometime yet.
PS: We have had over 2600 visits to the site since we started the counter in January.

It’s now July and we are still not in the ruddy house yet. Will we be in the house even by September when Jane’s wedding takes place? We keep going up to the house to do bits and bats but apart from a siesta this afternoon, where I accidentally fell asleep on our new bed, much to Elayne’s annoyance, we are still living ‘the good life’ in the caravan. The weather has been kind to us recently so we have slept well at least.
No activity on site today at all, despite Dario saying yesterday that he would be up ‘tomorrow‘, to which I said Domingo? and he said “si“, to fit the glass to the front door and the dining room doors. Being Sunday we fully expected him to arrive with wife, kids and cousins in tow. We will sometimes sit here in the caravan working or doing something and then we look up to find Jose or Dario plus family and kids arriving to take photographs of themselves stood on the veranda in front of the house, bloody cheek.
I was saying to Elayne yesterday that I am now really sick and tired of the whole project. I just want everyone to go away and not come back. Leave us in peace to get on with living here in our house by ourselves. Then I have a drink, cheer up a little and think that it can’t be too long now, surely, can it?
This is the 301st blog since we started. Since the 9th of September we must have published perhaps 270 blogs. As I write the blogs in MS Works and then transfer the days etchings to the real on line blog, I then return to MSWorks and reduce the writings to 1 point size to save them. I have just started on page four of this works document and the date at the top of the first page is 9-9-2006. Not a bad 270 blogs worth on three pages. I can of course take any particular section and blow it back up to twelve point to read it again as well as searching the archives on line. I have just tried an experiment and blown the full three pages back up from one point to twelve point. It blew up to be a document with one hundred and five pages, needless to say I reduced it straight back down to one point again.

Well we were promised that we would finally move into the house today, but this promise did not take into account that no one seems able to control the plumber. He was coming today. Carlos phoned him from here at eleven o’clock this morning, and he would be here in one hour. He didn’t show up at all despite Dario and Carlos’s best efforts. I’m not sure where we stand now but we ain’t moved in yet. Most jobs are complete, where they can be. Carlos’s mate has tried to drill bolt holes in the beautiful marble thresholds and made a real mess of them. They are chipped big time all around the holes and I have told Dario that the whole step has to be removed and replaced.
We had two lads up to build the garage today. They have worked like hell, and argued like hell, but they have made good progress up to a point where they need some simple scaffold to get any higher. I will get this next week together with the window and door lintels. When they return next Saturday they will crack on and get up to roof level.
We had our final furniture delivery this afternoon. The lounge suite and our bed. They are both everything that we remember and wanted. I did say that when the bed is in we are in, but without water it will be a bit inconvenient so we’ll wait another couple of days and see what happens. The builder is cutting up a little rough and not wanting us to move in before he gets his final payment. We’ll see how that all ends up.
We have however, this evening, sat on our patio enjoying a drink in the very warm evening sun, followed by a long refreshing dip in the hot tub, brilliant after a hot day.

Our love goes to our UK friends John and Christine Emery who are having a rough time just now. We hope that life improves for you both from now on and that you can get back to some sort of normality very very soon, our thoughts are with you both and your families.
After the trials and trauma’s of yesterday we found that we were very hungry this morning. We had forgotten to eat, except for some cornflakes, yesterday. So we headed down to Albox and to Bar International for a FEB. We had just ordered the meal when the mobile jiggled in my pocket and a Spanish guy muttered something about delivering to Taberno. We were not expecting anything else until tomorrow, thus us being in Albox. I threw the phone at Ruby and asked her to have a word to the caller. My instruction for all deliveries is as soon as the driver leaves the motorway, give me a ring and by the time they have made it to Taberno, I can drive from the house or even Albox and meet them to guide them up to site. These guys phoned from the car park at Lentisco’s in Taberno. We asked Ruby to explain that we would be about an hour and that they should go and have a coffee or something stronger and we would hot foot it back to meet them. So we gulped down our long awaited breakfast and sped back to Taberno toot sweet.
Unlike the bad delivery yesterday, this delivery was perfect and the two young men took great care to assemble the dining room table and the downstairs patio set and then cleaned up after themselves.
Whilst we were having breakfast the phone went for a second time and the manageress of the crappy furniture store rang, expressing her shock/horror at what had happened yesterday. She couldn’t believe that the furniture could be so bad (she hadn’t even bothered to see the stuff before she rang). I told her that we were very disappointed with them and that we would be in to see them on Monday for our deposit back. If they decide to be reluctant to fork out our deposit I will use the immortal words that over here really do have meaning, ‘I would like to make an entry in your complaints book please’. If I do this, and I make a complaint, I get a copy of the complaint and an official copy goes off to the central Almerian Government for serious investigation. Normally firms here wake up big time and will do almost anything to avoid this final sanction because it is taken so seriously, records are kept for future use and transgressors are even shut down if they get too many complaints against them. Consumer protection, backed up by government, now that seems a good idea.
BTW This is the 300th posting.

We should have known that today would be a disappointment. Only two out of four deliveries arrived. One delivery of bedroom furniture arrived OK and intact. The second delivery, was our very expensive (to us anyway) lounge hard furnishings (matching side boards, coffee table, TV table and shelving units). It was so dirty and of poor quality that we have sent it back and we refused to pay for it. We will be going back down to the ‘posh store‘, that sold us the units, on Monday to create havoc and to demand our deposit back. For our Spanish friends and readers the firm in question is Calamobel at El Real, Antas. We will then go somewhere else and buy another set of furniture.
If the third delivery does not turn up later today, we are sleeping back in the caravan once more tonight. PS: It didn’t so we are.
Dario sent one young lad up today to do some finishing off but off course we have not seen sight or sound of bloody Carlos. Therefore the electrics, plumbing and the heating systems are all still not working properly. As an experiment we did leave all the outside and some of the inside lights on last night on solar/battery generated power to see if they would last the night. We were amazed that not only did they last the whole night but I was also able to turn on the fridge/freezer and the cooker hood this morning and it all worked OK, without the genny on. I thought that perhaps the lights would be dimming by this morning but all was well.

We really feel for the peoples of Yorkshire who are having such an awful time due to rain and flooding. We understand that it may get worse before it gets better. Keep safe everyone, we are thinking about you.
We have been zipping about today in anticipation of move in/carnival day tomorrow. The only main obstacle (other than natural causes) to us moving in would be if the bed did not arrive as promised. We are not sure now if we have three or four deliveries of furniture arriving here tomorrow, we have spoken to so many shops that I’ve lost track of it all.
The local builders merchants have this afternoon delivered seven pallets of blocks, one pallet of cement and two windows in readiness of the start on Saturday of the garage build. There is still a lot more materials to arrive but the clever merchants have sent all the items up that will initially allow us to proceed with the job on Saturday. I don’t think that B&Q would give any thought to priority like that.
We are off dancing just now, it’s good to get away from here for a few hours. We might just have an odd drink or two whilst we are out. Night night.

Our friend, Mike Newman’s birthday today, happy birthday Mike, have a good day.
The die is set, we are moving in to Bella Solana on Thursday, ready or not (just three weeks under one year since we arrived in Spain). If we wait until everything is done we will be still in the caravan for another winter. Better that we get in and then persuade the builder by not giving him his final payment until he does all the things that we want him to do.
We have three furniture companies arriving on site on Thursday and for each one I will have to drive down to Taberno to meet them in Lentisco’s car park and guide them up to site. If they arrive all at the same time we could have a convoy.
Tomorrow all the materials with which to build/complete the garage are arriving. Three lorry loads of blocks, cement, concrete roof girders, doors, window and a cement mixer. A cement mixer is an essential tool for most settlers to this area because people either do what we are doing or buy a ruin for renovation. We will need a cement mixer to build garden walls etc, etc for a long time. Today we had ten tonnes of sand delivered and the guys that are doing the building are coming onto site on Saturday morning. I have to collect them and later return them to Taberno. They will work for ten hours on Saturday and ten again Sunday, then back to the day job for the rest of the week. It should all be finished in four or five week ends.
Busy, but exciting times ahead. We thought that it would never come.

Well it nearly came off. We had one cleaner (instead of two) and Carlos called to connect the garage up to the electrical system today but didn’t finish off anything else.
I cornered Dario this afternoon and sat him down in the caravan, with a Spanish calendar, and we agreed that subject to this and subject to that we would call the project complete on Thursday 28th June. Dario will call our architecto, Chema, who happens now to be the Mayor of Taberno, and ask him to attend and inspect the building on Thursday and Bob, of Lighthouse Properties, will also be in attendance for the great occasion. We have already started to call in all the furniture with the first lot arriving sometime on Thursday morning.
Once we have electricity and a bed, we are off up that hill to sleep in a proper brick building for the first time since we moved up here in September last year.
We are both very excited but we also appreciate that there could be a few last minute snags that may just keep us here a little longer.
As with every project we have ever done I find that if we don’t drive it forward then the project goes into a malaise and nothing ever gets finished off. Even previous house moving in the UK, with overpaid solicitors sat on their big fees, has had to be driven to make it happen when we want it too. Clearly Spain is no different.
Muchos bank visits for large dollops of money to pay every one as they arrive with items of furniture. If we pay them in cash as the furniture is delivered on site then no one asks for the IVA (VAT). As IVA is 16.5% then who am I to insist on paying 16.5% extra for everything, we no loco.
E: It has been one of the hottest days so far today, and we went down to Mojacar for a few hours. The poor cats are beginning to suffer the heat,(38 degrees when we got back to the caravan) so we hope that in a few days they will have some cold tiles to lie on. They lie under the caravan in the shade, when we get back and let them out.
We see from Wimbledon, that the weather is being as summery as usual for this time of year, with tempests and floods, and howling gales. We hope that it gets better soon, ‘onest we do.

Week 26 of the build. It is supposed to be finished this week. It could be finished this week if some ‘digits were extracted‘. However we won’t be surprised if it’s not. Needless to say, no builders, electricians, plumbers or cleaners on site yesterday and today.
Last night we went, with Allen and Mags, to Saliente. We had been invited to go there for a drink and to watch Steve and Trudy’s paragliding friends having a mass glide from Steve’s launch site high above Saliente. It was a nice evening so having a drink, listening to nice music and watching eight or nine paragliders swooping and soaring around was great. Whilst there we met up with Jane (interpreter) and her husband Bill and their youngest daughter Lucy. Some of the paragliders came in so close to where we were sitting that we got some good photographs of them. One or two actually landed on the monastery plaza and one guy got his chute and lines all tangled up in the trees whilst his mate landed and the chute blew back over the cross on the plaza. A good evening was had by all.
Afterwards, Allen, Mags, Jane , Bill, Lucy and her friend, and Elayne and I went for a meal at a petrol station at Las Pocicas. You wouldn’t head for a petrol station if you wanted a meal in the UK would you? but this was a small family run garage and the food was really good. At €11 a head, including drinks, it was very good value. Another bit of local culinary knowledge under our belt. Thanks to Jane and Bill for their recommendation and guidance.

It’s funny but the work on the kitchen has now stalled because of the double sink unit, that we ordered via Carlos, has not yet been delivered yet. Because of this the plumber can not be called in to finish off fitting the sink, plumbing in the dish washer and washing machine (‘for the want of a horse shoe nail‘).
The house is now generally cleared of all/most of the rubbish and one hopes that we don’t now have any winds before it is totally removed from site, or they will have to do yet another rubbish collection trip right down into the campo.
We hear that this week end in the UK is going to be very wet (just in time for Wimbledon and Cliff Richard to entertain the disappointed tennis crowds). I have been watching some motor bike racing from Donnington on TV this afternoon and the riders could hardly see each other it was raining so hard. Lots of spills but no one really hurt.

Tonight we have blistering internet speed, thus a few more pictures than normal (don't hold your breath though).

Wednesday 20-6-2007
We may not have the internet, again today, but we do have four guys working here on site. Carlos did arrive after twelve, but he’s here and that is good.
This morning one of Carlos’s men asked us to lay out the light fittings, in their respective rooms, so that he could start hanging and connecting them. These include also the bathroom mirror fitments, which have light in them, together with the outside porch, the solarium and the outside wall lights.
All quite exciting. Could it be that ‘the end is nigh‘, at last? We had better not believe that too much just yet.
The temperature is thirty four just outside the caravan today. The so called cold water coming down from the hebe in black pipes to the caravan is so hot when it gets here that you can’t put your hand in it. I had a shower this morning and the water was too hot for comfort.
Thursday 21-6-2007
We had a nice surprise this morning when we came back from Albox. As we drove past and looked across at the house we saw that the electrician had put the outside porch lights up as well as the outside wall lights. Talk about it changing the way that the building looks. ‘Bella Solana’ (beautiful sunny place) is now finally dressed properly and she looks very bella for it. We are both delighted with the overall appearance that the house now has.
We have had Carlos and crew on site for a full three days now and the kitchen is nearly finished and lots of the odd jobs are being completed. We rang Dario today to ask why he had sent no one up to site today when he still has quite a lot of tidying up jobs still to do. We got a blathered answer but we are going to keep the pressure on him to finish next week. We also called Phil over (of solar fame, he is working near by) to discuss with Carlos what is required to join the solar and generator electrical system up with the electrics for the house and garage. They each now know what is required and Phil will come over on Tuesday or Wednesday to make the connections and the whole thing live. We’re nearly there.
This morning we went with Jane (interpreter) to the Albox medical centre where we have now become registered with a lady doctor down there. She speaks no English so we will have to take plenty of translation books with us or we call Jane up and she can come with us. It’s yet another stage in getting fully engrossed into the Spanish system.
BTW, a comment just because you may be interested. Banking between here and the UK is quite easy. We still bank in the UK and have our pensions etc, paid into our UK accounts. Once a month we have a standing order that transfers a set amount of money over to our Spanish bank account and also we can make spot transfers between the UK and Spanish accounts for special payments like the lump sums for the house. For these transfers we use Currency Direct. Hole in the wall banking, and the getting of cash, generally is good although a payment of €0.30 is made for each transaction. There you go should you have ever wondered.

Saturday 16-6-2007After all the promise of yesterday with Dario saying that he will send four guys up today, guess what, no one has been near us at all, all day. We rushed off down to the supermarket early so that we could return to offer advice to the site cleaner on how to recognise old discarded cement bags hanging from our almond trees down in the campo as rubbish needing to be collected. Ah well, we have been able to use the tub this afternoon in peace, it was lovely cooling off in there.
I tested out most of the new water piping today using the hebe submersible water pump to pressurise the system. I am quite chuffed to say that so far as I was able to test, all seemed OK. We have a 2800ltr/min, none submersible, water pump and regulator to fit onto the house part of the system when we fit the water softener, perhaps sometime next week. That should give us good pressure in the showers and soft water that will not clog all the pipes up within eighteen months. If we got as far as clogging the water pipes up, because we did not put a softener in, most of the floors and tiles in the house would have to be taken up to renew the pipes, not a good option.
Sunday 17-6-2007
No internet and bloody builders once more today. Didn’t really expect either but it is a ‘p…. in the a….’. We are going to investigate if Telefonica (Spanish version of BT) also do a radio link internet and telephone package. If they do and we can make ourselves understood then we might switch over to them. Until yesterday, when we were talking to someone in Taberno, we didn’t know that Telefonica had a radio internet service. It’s a shame we can’t do the same with the builders.
It’s another blisteringly hot day today. My outside thermometer, on the sunny side of the caravan, has been in the forties this morning and a very muggy thirty five inside the van.
We have done some caravan cleaning this morning, just to work up a lather. Then we are going to do various things in Taberno and then we will come back and watch the finals of the tennis at Queens. All this activity interspersed , of course, with showers and dips in the hot tub, what a life.
Monday 18-6-2007
I had a head to head with Dario this morning. After all the promise of four guys working up here last week and then nothing, this morning he shows up with just one guy. I let him know that we were now getting fed up with him promising to get things moving and nothing happening. I reminded him that last week he promised that he would be finished in two weeks. He repeated this promise again this morning and then after lengthy discussions with Carlos, on the phone, he said that Carlos would be back up here tomorrow.
If he and Carlos don’t show that they are going to get on, and finish very quickly, I am going to tell him that I will employ someone else to finish the job and that I will use the money that was going to be his final payment. Oh! You can tell that I am now vexed. I have got my dander up now (what the hell is a dander anyway, when I have got it up?) .
Tuesday 19-6-2007
After our annoyance, as expressed to Dario yesterday, we have Carlos and two men plus a builder on site today (four in total). We have, at last, seen the kitchen fronts and doors, that we ordered many moons ago (not quite the same as the catalogue). It’s funny that they should arrive just on the day we tell Dario how brassed off we’re getting. Elayne and I think that they have been in Carlos’s store for some time and have only just been produced because we were getting a bit fractious. If we don’t protest then everyone goes off to more pressing jobs. Therefore protest, protest, protest it will have to be until we are really glad that they have all gone to other jobs.
Sorry about the internet, still not on after ten days. We are told that AVI are building an extra new mast to cater for the over subscribed mast that is in use now. How long that will be is any ones guess.

Friday 15-6-2007
We had yet another windy, restless night last night. We had hoped that we wouldn’t have to put up with any more, it being sort of summer and that, but the weather is determined not to let us forget how vulnerable we are in the caravan.
We have had Phil up today and he has now nearly finished installing the solar system. He can do no more now until Carlos finishes the house electrics. Dario and Jose came up this afternoon to remove the cement mixer and the scaffolding frames from site. He indicated that there will be four guys on site tomorrow, touching paint work up, putting in glass to the dining room and front doors and cleaning the site up. We’ll see.
My cousin Barbara and her husband Pete are coming down to see us on Sunday and Monday together with Pete’s sister and husband, Jackie and Norm, from Canada. It will be a nice distraction for us from thinking about the problems of the house.
I managed to get on line for ten minutes last night, just enough time to upload the blog but not enough time to upload any pictures, sorry. It can only get better than this.

Sunday, Monday 10th & 11th June
It was Ivan’s tenth birthday yesterday (Sunday) HBTY. HBTY. HBD.D Ivan. HBTY. We had a good long chat on the phone to him and the family. Ivan’s special pressie was a telescope so we might be able to wave to him from up on the solarium.
We did a lot of pottering about yesterday, without leaving here. Elayne did bits and bats of things in the caravan and I dug a trench in the concrete for the new water pipes to pass round to the back of the house after emerging from a manhole and underground pipe from the back of the casita.
Today, Monday, after we had had an early morning dip, ensuring of course that we were not going to have an audience (nobody at all on site today) we did some shopping in Albox, then we came back and moved the 5Kv genny up to the back of the casita, its new home from now on. We have left one of the original little 2.7Kv genny’s down at the van. We managed to chain the genny to the back of the car and tow it slowly up the hill and down the drive. Getting it around the back of the casita and then levelling it up was a bit heavy going but we got there in the end.
We clearly now just have to wait on the mysterious Carlos to get a grip of our kitchen units, the central heating and the rest of the plumbing and the electrics, and we’ll be nearly there.
In fact we are now thinking of cancelling any possible move into the house, ready or not, until after Wimbledon, we don’t want to miss any of the tennis due to furniture arriving and bothersome things like that.
Tuesday 12th June
Our group of friends here have started to meet on a Monday evening for a game of cards down at Lentisco’s. This is because dancing lessons have finished. Last night there were ten of us around two tables playing the simplest of card games, ‘chase the ace’. It was a real hoot. We must have played for two hours, with shrieks of laughter, much to the bemusement of the card playing Spanish folk.
Today we have Carlos on site fitting the kitchen work surfaces, heavens above. It is now 16-30hrs and Jose has just arrived to start removing building materials and equipment from site.
We are having a meeting on Wednesday with Dario to go through our ‘snags list’. He may as well start to do these jobs whilst Carlos is still doing the kitchen, thus, we hope, bringing nearer the move in date a little. Well we can only hope. There must come a stage when Dario wants his final payment from us and therefore one would think that he would want the project finished as soon as he can. Clearly he’s not hungry enough for it to hurt.
Wednesday 13th June
Sorry still no internet access. I have talked to Madrid and although they record the calls, pass the complaint to the technical department, refund the monthly fees for down time and sympathise with the situation, until the technical problem is permanently overcome there is little that can be done.
Busy day on site. We had a snags meeting this morning with Bob and Dario. We wrote out a list of snags and tried to put them into some sort of sequence of order, good old MS Word. Whilst we were going through the list poor old Dario had the look of a small boy being told off for bad work at school. We did finish by telling him that we were in general very pleased with the work that everyone has done and that by and large the standard of work has not been too bad. Dario estimated that he would be finished in two weeks, but we are not going to get excited just yet. A team (whatever that means) of cleaners will be coming up this week to do the floors and windows etc. We don’t expect all of the snags to be corrected all at once but now that we have a list on the computer we can check it all off as we go.
Also on site today is the central heating engineers/plumbers. The oil tank for the C/H is going behind the casita and the boiler itself is going inside the casita and then the pipes will go under the drive for the hot water to get to the house. We’re not sure how long all of this will take.
The temperature outside the caravan window where I am typing this is 33 degrees, inside is 35 degrees. We have all the fans on and we are going to watch the tennis from Queens in a minute (we might have a little siesta if the games become boring).
Thursday 14th June
It’s hot, hot again today nearly thirty degrees in the shade. We do seem to be acclimatising to the heat but we are careful to not get over done whilst working outside.
We were dancing in the street, in Taberno, last night. The day and evening were so warm that we had our Wednesday dance at Lentisco’s al fresco on the patio and spilling into the street. Elayne and I danced twice out on the road, because it was nearer to our table than the dance area on the patio, all the time keeping a sharp look out for cars and scooters of course. We did think about dancing on the zebra crossing but it wouldn’t get much sympathy over here, whilst you were in hospital. A round of drinks for ten of us came to €14 and included the entertainment and a supper of paella, chips with aioli, bread and ending up with popcorn. Paco brings the plates of food out to the tables and we all tuck in.
The plumber has been here most of the day, finishing installing the central heating boiler. We also had ten tonnes of gravel delivered. Fortunately we had just arrived back from shopping so that we were able to tell the lorry driver exactly where to tip it. Goodness knows where he would have put it using his own initiative.
I’m sorry to our regular blog readers but we are still off line. I rang through a complaint again but the organisation AVI is so big that it doesn’t seem to do much good. We are not the only ones suffering and it seems to be a problem with the mast down near Albox. It is said that they will be putting a new mast up, but we don’t know when that will be. As we all seem to talk to one another in the area and each time we are off line we seek compensation, then AVI must in the end take note or lose customers, should an alternative become available. It’s frustrating.

Friday & Satrday 8th & 9th June

Friday 8-6-2007
The spring here is now giving way to full, hot, Spanish summer. The Wattle, Oleander and Jacaranda in flower have all been magnificent. Since the third week of January, when the almonds started to blossom, we have had flowers all the way through to now, and it’s not all over yet. The beautiful grasses are now all turning brown and are sharp to walk through. The next big thing on our farming calendar will be picking the almonds in August. We might also be in the house by then.
No builders today, but Phil Reynolds (our solar man) has been up. Between us we have decided that the solar panels will be better on a concrete plinth on the ground behind the casita, rather than exposed to the winds up on the casita roof. I had assumed, wrongly, that the panels would be flat onto the slanting casita roof, but they need to be angled at forty five degrees from the ground to be most efficient. The plinth will, when dried out, also allowed us to face all the panels due south rather than SS East on the casita roof. If at a later stage we need to build a wind break to the west of the panels we can and also it will be easier to extend the system if we require.
The down side of our decision is that we have had to mix loads of concrete (in Dario’s cement mixer) and drag it all up the banking to the back of the casita (about two metres up a hill) in a wheel barrow. The cement comes in thirty five kg bags and is very heavy for a delicate little flower like me. I was filling the mixer with the cement and ending up with more cement on me than in the mixer (a steep learning curve). Anyway we now have a south facing 2.5 x 1.5 x 0.2mtr plinth on which, next Friday, Phil will return to install the panels upon. I’m retiring knackered for the weekend and probably most of next week.
Saturday 9-6-2007
We didn’t expect anyone on site today so were surprised to be awoken at eight o’clock by Dario wanting the key to get in the house. We bring the key down to the caravan if we are not expecting anyone on site because the house has quite a lot of new equipment, and expensive, in it. We don’t feel comfortable with the front door key under a piece of wood next to the door any longer. Anyway today the tiler has been putting the bathroom tiles down in the ensuite shower and building the shower glass wall. We had to point out to them, early on, that they had brought the wrong tiles up to site and that they had still to bring four more glass tiles up, if they wanted to complete the wall. They did eventually, after lunch. Dario did actually, sort of, apologise to me for forgetting which shower floor tiles that we had chosen four weeks back (there‘s a first).
I have been laying out more of our water system. I have used another fifty meters of the pipe that I bought yesterday. We now have three pipes leading to the garden areas from which we can water directly from the hebe via an electronic drip feed system (that I have yet to suss out) and the main water pipe leading to the house and central heating system.
In a flush of excitement a few weeks back we bought a plastic garden/brush cupboard, the type that you can leave outside. I started to build it today, see pictures. It’s really one of the crapiest contraptions that it has ever been my misfortune to purchase. I have put it in the casita because there is nowhere suitable outside for such an awful object. We all make mistakes.
However it will be very useful, as we don’t have anywhere to put brooms and cleaning stuff in the house.(E)

A further ‘add on' to yesterdays story about being caught ‘red handed’, so to speak in our hot tub, by the builders. We discovered late yesterday evening that the alarm clock that we took the time from, yesterday morning, is in need of new batteries and was forty five minutes slow duhhhhhh!
We have done a lot of bits of everything today. I have started to design, with the help of Allen and Mags, our water system from the hebe to the utility room, where the water will be de-calcified and filtered, and then to the house where the drinking water will go through a purifier system. Part and parcel of the pipe-work run, outside the house and before the utility room, will be spurs off the main pipe to water the garden with an automatic drip timer watering system. The drip watering system for the garden is very economic and far more efficient, and thus less wasteful, than watering plants and trees with a can or a hose pipe. When we have to ship water in, these are necessary considerations. I have run one hundred meters of pipe already today and I now need to buy another hundred meters tomorrow to fulfil the main water pipe runs, whilst at the same time keeping water supplied to the caravan.
Tomorrow Phil (the solar man) is coming up to site to fit the solar and battery system up for us. I am starting to enjoy this period of work because it is useful and the better we design now, the better the whole thing will be for us in the future.
Today the house ‘potho negro’ (toilet water waste tank) has been connected up so it’s all taking shape a little.
We had an uninterrupted excess of an hour in the hot tub tonight, it is so refreshing after a hot sticky day in the sun. We feel fit as butchers dogs now.

BTW You can see Steve, with whom I went paragliding, flew over this morning taking some more pictures of the house.