The electrician cometh.

After the electric went off at the house yesterday I spoke with our Solicitor, who has a copy of the last electric bill, to get the account details so I could contact the supplier to see whether they were aware of any problems. Our solicitor very kindly said he would phone for us and let us know.

This morning he called back to say that as far as the supplier was concerned there was nothing wrong, which means the problem is at the house.

So, with a few new Spanish words learnt - such as fuse box, switch, electric - I dialled the mobile number of the Spanish electrician that had done the work at the house and prepared myself for a very difficult conversation.

I have learnt to start every conversation with the fact that I am English and speak a little Spanish. Having explained that we were working at the house when the electric went off, I asked if he could meet us there on Friday. I felt as if I'd done enough to keep it simple so was a little surprised when he answered with Friday? Today is Wednesday!

It took me a few more moments to realise he thought we were living at the house and therefore why would we be prepared to wait until Friday before he came out, he would come today if we had no power. Spanish mañana attitude obviously does not stretch to power failures.

I managed to explain that we weren't living there at the moment and would next be through on Friday which seemed to work and he suddenly told me he would be there about 11 on Friday.

Result!

Or it will be if he turns up.

A couple of days feels like a week.

I said to Neil that we should always make sure we have a car full of stuff for the new house each trip. Well, I think we could say we were doing our best. This is us after a trip to Brico Depot - Spain's equivalent of B&Q. We had been to buy the stuff to start doing the bathroom.



Plus a few other bits.

We have mains electric, so we took our spare microwave and toaster so we could make beans on toast and coffee for lunch.

This is our makeshift kitchen.

So, we unpacked the car, sorted everything out and set to work.

This was the bathroom before we started.


I have always fancied a shower with a really large shower head. We had seen these showers which also have a regular sized head on a long flexi-hose which will be ideal for showering Brinkley when he's been rolling in anything smelly he can find.



Pity the water's not connected yet - can't wait to try it.



We have a shower cubicle on order as we need a bi-fold door so can't just buy it off the shelf. If you look at the photo above you can see the toilet is quite close to the shower base (this was all installed before we got the place). Well, imagine having to sit down once we've installed the shower cubicle and - no where for the knees! So, solution - a bi-fold door. Then it will fold out of the way - problem solved!




I have always liked sinks built into cupboards and so we had bought a unit complete with mirror. From the size of the box, there was a lot of bits to put together but that was ok, we were experts at flat pack furniture.



So, imagine our surprise when we opened the box and discovered .....







........... it wasn't flat packed - it was ready assembled! That saved us a few hours work!

This meant Neil could get straight on with the installation.

So, we went from this ..... to this in about 30 minutes, taps connected, sink installed.

Another half an hour, and the mirrored cabinets were in place too.

Looking Good!

So, this seemed a good time to make some lunch (it was about 4.15pm and we hadn't eaten since breakfast) so I put the beans and toast on and suddenly nothing worked. We had no electric. It was as dead as a Dodo.

Neil checked the power to the house and 'nada', absolutely nothing.

Now, we have been looking for the electric meter but not found it yet. Jose had told us it was up at the road, but although we had found the water meter we couldn't find the electricity meter. We have no mobile phone signal at the house so we couldn't phone anyone - so we were a bit stuck.

We had seen someone working in the almond trees next door so I went round to speak to them to see if they could help. Of course, we are in the deep countryside here, they do not speak any English here. I introduced myself, explained what we were doing and asked them if they knew anything about the electric suppy. In amongst a lot of what I didn't understand, I did get that they were only there to harvest the almonds and they had nothing to do with the house and knew nothing about the electric. But, they did say our dogs were very pretty, so that was ok.

As there wasn't much left for us to do today, we tidied up, locked up and left.

Since we've been home I've had an e-mail telling me that the electric meter is in the caseta (small building) under the TV mast (on the next large hill) so we may need to go and explore soon.

In the meantime I have the phone number of the electrician and need to ring him to see whether he can meet us at the house next time we are there.

Over all, we've had a good couple of days. We have been to organise new tyres for the car, had a slow punture, where we'd picked up a nail, repaired, costing a whole €7, got a replacement window slat for the security grill (a whole €2), put a new lock on at the house, fitted most of the bathroom and lost all power.

I can't believe it's only Monday.

Next, we need to get the kitchen units - but a couple of days off - golf, car service, searching for a cooker - no time to rest!

Busy, busy, busy!

Dear friends.

These are our dear friends from California, Lynn & Andy, who have been to visit this week.

They arrived when we were still having wet weather and Andy & Neil ended up playing a round of golf in the rain. But we also had some lovely weather so we had time to wander around Garrucha market and shop, they came with us when we collected the keys to our new place and were our first visitors.

We'd had an enjoyable few days showing them around Terreros & Aguilas, sampling Spanish cuisine in the local restaurants,tapas in Turre and ending with a lovely BBQ party for them on Friday with some of our friends. Unfortunately, we only had a few days with them on their trip to Spain which started in Madrid and will finish in Barcelona next weekend.

Lynn & Andy are very special people in our lives and it will be too long before we see them again. As you can see Brandy & Brinkley made them feel very welcome.

We'll dig, dig, dig.....

Although we got the keys to the house a few days ago, we haven't been able to start work as we have had some very dear friends staying with us. So, the plan was that when they left yesterday we would go to the DIY place to get a few tools and then we would be able to go through to the house today and start looking for all the water pipes.Then an early start this morning and we would have the whole day to dig a few holes, find a few pipes and see what we were dealing with.

Neil had spoken with Jose, the seller and he had shown Neil a stick at the back of the property that marked one water pipe, an area in the garage where there was another, all the pipes coming through from the wall for the heating system and the pozo down the hill.

So, work boots on, big gloves and pick axe in hand - Neil started to dig the first hole hoping x really would mark the spot!




Before long we had found a pipe, which wasn't connected to anything - and it actually pointed the wrong way - it wasn't in the right direction to be from the bathroom to the pozo, it seemed to run from behind the house into the garage. Still, we were looking for pipes and we had found one - we would have to find a few more pieces of the jigsaw before it made any sense.

So, next stage was to dig outside by the 'stick'. We dug for a while and thankfully we didn't have to dig too deep before we found another pipe.

This time it was the water main.

We just couldn't work out where the pipes from the bathroom to the pozo were supposed to meet up. We had dug where Jose had said the water pipes were and found nothing that connected up from either end, only a pipe to nowhere and the mains.

Then Neil had a thought, could it be that the bathroom waste pipes were already connected to the pozo after all?

We needed to find out.

So, we connected the hosepipe to the only tap we have from the mains, in the garage

Fed it through the dining room window

Through the house to the bathroom

And pushed it down the loo.

Then we turned the water on and hoped the toilet didn't fill up and overflow. If it did, we would need to keep digging. If it didn't it meant it was flowing away somewhere.

And flow away it did. We ran the water for a good 10 minutes and it all just flowed away. Whatever Jose had been telling Neil, the problem between him only speaking Spanish and Neil only speaking English, it wasn't that the bathroom still needed to be connected up. All the taps need connecting - but the loo is done. So, we took the hosepipe and filled the cistern up - and had a ceremonial 'flushing of the loo' moment.

This has saved us a few days work and we can now start to fit out the bathroom and kitchen.

Maybe the house will be ready for us to move into at the end of the month after all.

Spiral staircase to the sky.

Outside we have a wrought iron, spiral staircase, which badly needs a new coat of Hammerite - bright white - my job. This leads up to the roof terrace.

But from here the views are stunning. As well as the sun loungers this will also house the huge Satellite dish for out TV.
We also have another room up here, which will make a great den.........

But needs a bit of work doing to it first, like a window, walls and a ceiling for starters!

But when it's done - what a view - not that I think we're going to have much time to sit and stare for a while. This will also be where I do my star gazing from. I'm hoping one day to be able to identify more than Orion's belt. After all, somewhere up there is a star named after my husband (one of those birthdays when I couldn't think of anything to get him so it was either a star or an adoptive Rhino).


High on the hill behind us is our nearest neighbour:

But all our hard work starts tomorrow at the back of the house. We have to dig a hole and find the waste pipe to the pozo. All being well Neil will be yielding a pick axe like a expert, and I'll be yielding the camera to record it!

Guess I have the easier job!

House Tour continued.....

Double doors lead to:

The kitchen!

Needs a lot doing to it, like everything - but it's all cabled for electric and piped up for water - so the hard work is done, (she said glibly!)

Back into the entrance hall and we have the bathroom, not that it will have a bath!

There are 3 bedrooms which are currently just bare rooms, no light fittings, just 4 white walls and tiled floors!

The hot tub will go here, on this part of the front terrace with views right down the valley.

The garage will be turned into a utility room

with the central heating boiler, washing machine and second freezer (emergency supplies incase we are snowed in during winter - I kid you not! We've even been practicing freezing milk, which works fine!) I'll also have an indoor drying area for when the odd rainy day makes drying the towels difficult.

Welcome to our new house.....

Please, come in!

We have an entrance hall which all the rooms lead from.

Firstly, we have the living/dining room.

The whole house has been tiled and painted but everything else needs doing from light fittings:

To the central heating radiators under all the windows:

And from the dining area we have double doors leading into: