Yesterday, a review.

Woke up extra early today, around 5:30 am, but it was OK.  I was just happy to find out I wasn't the only one in the bed.  The man is, however, a very very light sleeper and is also very very tired so I got up to let him rest, which has been lovely.  I got caught up on the canvas a day project which has eluded me the last two days due to exhaustion, got a cup of tea and watched the sun come up over the sea.  Life can be pretty darned sweet at 6am.

Got some catching up to do in other ways as well.  Youngest and I have been planting flowers like mad things over in the garden, photos should follow; and we had the first meeting with the architect and the builders on-site today.

Those guys are destucto-rama monsters.  Holy jeez they take stuff down fast.  If I could just get a key from them I could show you.

Some cracks in one of the vaults out back have appeared which weren't there before, kind of worrisome but what the heck.  I am having to g-nag those boys about protecting the floor, stairs and tiles, they just don't want too.  I am still fairly sure that the job foreman cannot read plans, he kept asking the architect questions to which he responded along the lines of, do you have the plans?  When I was talking to him the day before yesterday he was looking at them upside down......

They've already taken chunks of the roof off, I think before they consulted with the architect, pray it doesn't rain too much for me, m'kay?

I had to leave early, but the man showed up part way through.  The architect is planning on showing up really very often at this stage.  A good thing I think.

I also had one of those moments when you have to muzzle yourself and let a great joke die.  The man appeared at the job site, mid-meeting, quite unexpectedly.  He came in, said hi at which point I ran over to greet him and give him a hug with an air of surprise and delight.  I turned back to the conversation and while the architect was greeting him the foreman asked me if it was my husband.  For a brief second or two I was soooooo terribly tempted to say, "No, never seen him before, but he's really cute, no?"

Edit.

Would have loved to have seen his face.

Ah well.


On another good note, looks like that big block of work that wasn't going to happen for me is back on the table again!  WOOT.

Better still, the man's workplace phoned him up last night and he will be working until at least June and maybe beyond.  Seems they need him.  Good, no?

Bliss

The man is back.

I am utterly happy.

'nuff said.

See ya tomorrow, m'kay?

Love O

A day of miracles.

Miracle 1:  The man made it (safely) across the Atlantic.

Miracle 2:  I've got him booked to arrive here tomorrow!!!!

Miracle 3:  I went to the National Police to get yet another bit of paper for the eternal paper trail of the kids citizenship process and - get this - I had Every. Single. Piece. They. Wanted!!!

ALL.   OF.  THEM!



Good grief Charlie Brown.


But Barça lost tonight.  Someone else's miracle that one.

Twilight zone.

The man has - in theory - just taken off from Canada, headed for an airport that is, according to all sources, closed. 


I am feeling a might twitchy.  Also kind of wondering exactly where he is going to turn up at the end of this.


On a weirder note, do you realise that there is a scheduled, non-cancelled flight that is going from Reykjavík to London today?  


Am I the only one that finds that just a little surreal?






...........later...............


he's down and am I ever glad of it.

Whoa!! I am tired!!!

The guys showed up!

They also promptly broke the latch on the front door.  Ho hum.  It will ultimately be thrown out anyway.

Still....good news to see tools arriving, no?

LOVELY lunch with youngest in the garden, sat in the sun and ate...it was stupendous...and we put in some flowers I had bought all the while admiring the fact that there were no builders supplies in the garden, only in the house!!!

Something else I discovered.  Not only is the bed chillier when the man isn't here, but I think I don't roll over often enough.  That sounds crazy, but here's the backstory.  I am a really fairly heavy sleeper.  I can easily have a three hour nap and wake up in the exact same position I went to sleep in.  Exact.

The man however is a light sleeper who snorts and blows and rolls around...gets up to pee, checks his watch...you get the picture I imagine.

Well, with the man away my right shoulder has been getting progressively more and more sore and I think what is happening is that I am simply not being roused as much and so I am not rolling over as often as I do when he is here.  Not that I normally wake up, but he probably disturbs me enough that I shift.  I had fairly painful shoulder problems on the boat, I chalked it up to steering, but we didn't share a bunk there and it's making me wonder now if that was the problem there too.  I think in the summers I simply don't sleep enough to get sore.  Simply not enough hours in bed to work up any aches.

Freaky.

Just for the sake of it, I checked to see what it would cost to get the man out of Canada and back to BCN tomorrow wuth another airline on another route.  They wanted $4,255!!!!!


The profiteering rotten buggers.  Remind me never to fly with them.

The garden, after some work

Ok folks, please remember that I am still at the cleaning out stage...though I am going to put in some plants tomorrow.  I have literally removed two pick-up trucks worth of plant material.  Ford 450s not a little Nissan either.

"What did you do this weekend Oreneta?"

"I killed plants!"

Anyway, here's some views of it as it is now.  My hand is horribly sore from using the clippers all day, there is a monsterous spiky beast growing there and it was like cutting through twigs all day.  OUCH.

This looks almost Japanese in the photo...not so much in real life and that spiky stuff has GOT to go.

Ugly chairs, but we found them for free so if they get stolen, well, what the heck...in time we'll get something nicer, and a better gate.

Similar comments.  Unfortunately, or not actually, most of the greenery around this seat is roses.  Lots and lots of very big, very spiky roses.  Sit vewy vewy cawfullwy.

All the nasty spiky green stuff is gone.  There was a theme in this garden, and it hurt. I have never ever in my life been in a garden planted virtually exclusively with spikes and thorns.

I got some help though.

The garden

The construction guy, when walking past the garden in the front of the new house, sized it up and said he could use that space for tools and working and mixing stuff.

I said no.

"OK", he said, "I'll just store stuff there."

Today I bought a gate.

I also bought three meter-square bits of deck.  Part of the plan tomorrow is to go down and do me a bit of gardening.  Part of the plan Monday morning is to go and get me some plants and do a little more gardening.  I'll also put a table and some chairs in there.

I also will not be trimming back the enormous spiky prickly sharp and poke-y rose from the entryway.

Think that'll be clear enough?

I love it when I can get the environment to do the talking and I don't have to face the argument myself.

Especially when it makes my garden more beautiful too.

Look-y look-y!

Look what we have!!!

This is the permission to start work on the house!!!!!!!!

Contracts signed, first payment paid and they start on Monday.

NEVER thought we'd get here.

Honestly, I wasn't sure.

The new set of headaches start now, no?

?????????

Weird thing (some) Catalans do:  When they finish a puzzle, they glue it together, frame it and hang it on the wall.  I find that strange.

Rude thing one Catalan did (not to be generalised to all Catalans this one):  Came to my house, rang the bell, came inside.  All the while talking on her cell phone.  She continued her conversation for a full three minutes more while we all stood around inside my house, waiting for her to bother to say anything to us.

I find that really rude.

I am doubting again which contractor to go with, he is not returning calls.  He ain't even got the job yet and he isn't returning calls.

WTF??????



........later..........

Told that boy off. Up one side and down the other.  I was being nice enough until he called me 'noia' which is girl-y (kind of).  Then I got nastier.

We met at five and seem to have sorted our differences.  It does help when the contractors need work.  They do have to reform to some extent.  He sent all the documents I need, even translated one of them out of Spanish for me, even though I told him, repeatedly, that he didn't have to, and the man will have a look over them this evening too.  If all goes well, I'll sign them, get the license, give him his initial payment and he may even start on Monday.

Yeehaw.

The man is supposed to be flying back from Canada via the UK in the next few days.  Here's hoping he makes it.  Not only do I miss him madly, but we have two meetings with government offices next week that he has to be here for.  Wonder if you can be excused on account of Icelandic Volcanoes.

Never, ever, ever, ever dull.

Well thank god for that.

Favoured contractor wasn't sending in his bid in a timely manner, which was producing a certain amount of, ah, tension on my part.  Indeed I found myself going to bed with the iPod on having laid there feeling angsty and frustrated for over an hour.  Listened to a book podcast and dozed right off, I was plenty tired.

Turns out he sent it to himself rather than to me.  Let's hope he's better with a hammer than a hard drive.

So.  Now we have a contractor chosen, or rather I do as the man is out of the race at the moment and I am handling this crap now.  Phoned the architect, he hasn't called back.

What right does he have to be busy with something else when I am trying to reach him, H.O.N.E.S.T.L.Y!

I am never, ever, ever unreasonable.

Never.

Oh, and I found the perfect thing, this is exactly what I need.