22nd June
We couldn't prevaricate any longer, we started the other
side of the roof today. By 11.30 a.m. the tiles had been stripped from half the
second side (the first hour of the day's work had been erecting the scaffold
tower); it took the rest of the day to chip away the concrete and lay and level
the planks - all done by Brett, as I'm not allowed on the roof, for this part of the job I'm only allowed to 'fetch
and carry'!
As we knew it wasn't going to rain we quite happily left the
roof uncovered over night.
23rd June
It was rather breezy this morning so we didn't think it was
worth taking the risk of handling the roofing sheets in the wind; they're hard
enough to handle as it is.
Booted Eagles are a common sight over the quinta (yawn!) but
today we saw two Black Vultures - they are one of the biggest birds in the world with a wing span of 8.5' -
9.5'; we were very excited, they're just such exotic birds to see in the wild.
By the afternoon the wind had dropped slightly and Brett was raring to go; so we cut two sheets and
carried one round to the front of the house ........ BIG problems. Firstly, because
the building is built into a slope, on one side the eaves are reachable (the
side we've completed) on the other side you need to be at the top of a ladder.
Secondly, in front of the building there are grape vines and peach trees which
make it nearly impossible to get a ladder close.
Anyway there we are with this heavy roofing sheet which we
have half heaved onto the roof, at this point Brett needs to get onto the roof
to pull it up, .......... so he says "can you hold it there?",
"no" was my straightforward answer! So we took it down and tried to
think of a practical solution; mine was simple - let's ask someone to come and
help. And then we heard "Hello?", it was Nick; he was a brilliant
help, he did what I couldn't and we managed to get four sheets up, so now we
have 3/4 of a roof completed.
Bastard as vespas!!
(wasps): I was standing, minding my own business, when I got attacked by wasps
- 3 stings (hand, elbow, waist) and they're bloody painful (even Brett says so;
he says, and I quote, "Sandra is not exaggerating for once, they are
bloody painful, they're like a red hot needle being slowly pushed into your
skin"), fortunately I didn't go in anaphylactic shock!!
We went for a lovely walk this evening but when we came home
the lights were off (we'd left them on), then we heard it, the noise of the
inverter spitting and sparking, it had flames shooting out of (Mark stop
mumbling "what do you expect from China"). Nick is coming round with
a replacement inverter first thing in the morning; he's had a few problems with
them which he's in the process of sorting out, so fingers crossed it should be
sorted soon.
24th June
So Nick came round with the replacement inverter and
........ it won't run our fridge, it's not a pure sign wave (I don't actually
know what that means!) and it's not as powerful as ours; but it's all he had,
he'll get a proper one to us as soon as he can.
I'm writing this down as, as the saying goes, 'these things
come in threes' and I don't want any more major disasters; all day yesterday
and today we haven't been able to get on the internet, it says our password or
username is invalid - but it's done that before, I think the modem has to be
turned off then on again, but it is very inconvenient. So please let that be
number two, as three could be another biggie!
We went into Castelo Branco this morning to buy supplies (we
even bought paint for our 'pool', so I was quite excited). Coming home the car
started slowing down and an orange light came on, we stopped and looked at the
manual it looks like it's the emissions warning light (the manual is in
Portuguese), Brett thinks it's been caused by the fine sandy soil from the
quinta that gets everywhere. We managed to get home, but of course now we have
to get the truck to Mitsubishi and get it hooked onto their diagnostic computer
We went to P&M's, to use their internet; phew, the
losing power is an automatic response when the sensors detect a problem ('limp
home mode'), the engine is fine now!! The light won't go out until it's been
checked though, so we'll be back in Castelo Branco tomorrow.
I'm so disappointed my parcel still hasn't arrived and my
response from Royal Mail was less than helpful - it was obviously a stock reply
with no reference to my query at all, what's the point of a tracking service
that doesn't track and a customer help line that doesn't help customers?
It was 33.5◦C (that's 92.3F!!!!) inside today AND WE HAVE NO FRIDGE!!!!!! Which means
we have no cold drinks and we can't keep food fresh so we'll have to shop
daily, we are not happy.
We started to empty out the water tank (the one we used as a
pool last year) this evening, it's got 11 cubic metres of water in it (which is
quite a lot) so we were only able to empty about a 1/3 of it out (we used it to
water fruit trees) - especially as some of Louis's hay is downhill from the
tank and we didn't want to get his bales wet. Once the tank is empty we'll
scrub it out thoroughly, let it dry completely and then paint it with special
swimming pool paint (blue) which has an algaecide in it. Then when it's dry
fill it up with nice cold water from our well - we can't wait!!
25th June
HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAM!
Still no internet access; we're getting a bit fed up Now,
Brett's mumbling about getting TMN (Pam has it with a MIFI receiver and it
works very well, at her quinta), I
don't want to pay 30€ a month only to find out it works no better than the free
village internet. So we're back to uploading the blog at Jumbo, once a week or
so!
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