Tuesday and Wednesdays Blog.

The very last day of February, wow we have survived so far! Spring in Spain starts tomorrowJ
It seems to be a strange coincidence that whenever there is a bank holiday looming the internet connection with Iberband goes ‘off line‘. I had trouble last thing yesterday, before we went out, and today I am not able to connect properly just yet today.
When we got to the Hostel (where we dance) last night, everyone was stood about outside, obviously our dance teacher with the key had not arrived. We then got a message to say that as it was bank holiday today he (the dance teacher) had gone home for the holiday (wherever that is) and therefore the night was cancelled. Had he turned up we would have had the biggest turn out of people to dance since the Christmas break. Well all dressed up and no where to go, what can one do? but retire to Lentisco’s and drown our sorrows. It was strange but we were home for ten so we cranked up the genny and had some tea before retiring to bed just after midnight.
We were going to play tennis today but as with lots of things in this strange place the Public Sports Centre is closed on Public Holidays. Elayne and I went down to Allen and Mags house and we played some very competitive table tennis in the blazing hot sun. We had a lovely time with them. We will play tennis when ever Allen is not committed to having to work.
The builders are finishing the wall rendering and have started to remove some of the cornicing to make way for fitting the stairs on the outside of the house. Jose has been up twice today, once to deliver two more window frames and just now he is removing nearly all the roof props and the shuttering boards from site. The polystyrene cornice mouldings have now been removed from all of the sides of the house except above the front porch. The cement rendering is drying very fast and is lightening in colour as it does so. It is starting to look really good. We realise that there is still lots to do yet, but we do feel that perhaps spring is in the air (now that might be a good title for a song?).
Tuesday Blog, just back on line, sorry.
This morning we were literally woken up by knocking on the caravan door at five minutes to eight. I stumble from bed and shouted around the corner of the door ‘momento’ to a bemused Dario. I slung some slob outs on and couldn’t connect with my comb so went back to the door and invited him in. As we passed the bedroom door Elayne was still in bed. I sat Dario down and opened the curtains whilst trying to explain to him that when it is not windy we sleep very soundly. Anyway we all laughed at it as Elayne emerged in her dressing gown. Explanation: it may be noticed that we have two doors into the caravan, one to the bedroom end and the other to the lounge end. In December we taped the lounge end door and some of the windows up to reduce the draughts whilst we sat and worked in the lounge, dining and kitchen area. These are still taped up until we get well into March as it can still turn cold in the evenings. Thus Dario came in by the bedroom end door this morning. He wanted to talk about the house lounge double doors out onto the patio. The builders standard fit is by putting in double sliding doors and we have requested outward opening double fully glazed doors. All sorted now.
This next paragraph is for the fans of my genny exploits. The instruction booklet advises that after twenty hour use or after one month one should drain out all the old oil and re-fill it with new. It sounds easy except that the oil drain plug is almost underneath the genny. After much puzzlement and debate with “’er ’oo knows nearly everything” I pulled the genny to the edge of the lay-by, wedged it up on some wood and did the deed by draining nearly one and a half litres of oil. Why is it that the container that one uses for this job is always smaller than the amount of oil to be drained? I managed in the end without too much spillage and then re-filling was easy.
O! yes and the house. Well today has been all rendering around the north and south sides of the house. I would have suspected that they would have finish this rendering by tomorrow, except that it is a bank holiday (Andalusia Day) tomorrow. Now if they were Swiss I would suspect that we would not see them again now until Monday. We shall see. Jose has been up this afternoon delivering the rejas. we will have a look at them when we go for our inspection.
Update bulletin on Ivan. We saw and spoke to him last night and he is being very brave despite being very sore, what a hero. J The original pain has now gone so we are all keeping our fingers crossed for his early full recovery. He has three little slits where they went in to remove the offending appendix, it’s amazing what they can do now without invasive surgery.
We are dancing tonight after missing last week and I think that we will be playing tennis on Thursday, another week almost gone.