Bathroom spurt

Wednesday 8^th November

Weather continuing wet , with heavy showers. After breakfast drove to the house , and surprise , surprise, Ricardo was there delivering sand, and Tommy, Sergio and a young lad were there …..Ricardo was apologetic about the flood, and had drained another flood overnight by somehow accessing the new drains…….said we should have called him yesterday !!. He agreed the new roof must be built as soon as possible to stop any future floods, and he would get the materials today.

Also, the electricity system would be started today, with the Electricity Man coming on Friday.. There was no electricity, due to the flood, but he would ask one of the neighbours if he could plug into them. Everything sounded rosy, and we drove to Marbella with great optimism that real progress would happen today, to find La Cañada, which has a huge DIY store… Leroy Merlin

We went round the builders yard section first and then to the main store which was huge…….a DIY hypermarket to rival B&Q at home. Interestingly, about 80% of customers were English. J splashed out……..pardon the pun….. on 2 showers and taps for both bathrooms, kitchen tap and a light for the kitchen.

We drove back over the mountains in a heavy shower and on to the house, where Sergio and the boy were working loading/unloading bricks and starting one of the curtain walls in the front room, behind which were the electricity tubes. These are plastic tubes through which the wires pass, and obviate the need to chase out wires in the plaster. There was no sign of Tommy or Ricardo, and Sergio now seemed entrusted with bricklaying ……learning /practicing on J’s house ??

It was clear that not much progress had been made, with pink aerosol marks on wall indicating where electricity sockets should go ……some of them completely wrong, so another task for tomorrow…..J also very concerned that the walls had not been sealed prior to the curtain walls being built…….resolved to catch Ricardo in the morning to discuss with him + several other issues.

Back to the mountains. It was raining heavily when we went out for a tapas at about 7.45 pm and we had simple 2 tapas each, and wine. There was a torrential downpour while we were there, and had to have another wine before we could leave…honest. !!

Thursday 9^th November

Drove to house after breakfast to see Tommy and show him the showers and taps we had purchased…….”they are ok “. Went to market and J caught Ricardo on returning. She tackled him about the lack of sealant on the walls before the curtain wall was being built, and that the wall had to be demolished…..at no cost….. and the old walls sealed with caucho (sealant).

After lunch, we went to a local light shop to look at lights ……more of this next week. Reviwed the days late afternoon and good progress …..most of bathroom complete with plumbing, curtain walls down and Sergio applying caucho to front room walls.

Friday 10^th November 2006

We drove to the house early to discuss queries with Tommy, who was busy working on the new roof. We drove to Leroy Merlin to change the shower taps and kitchen light, and chose matching shower taps.

We had lunch at an expensive Marbella beach restaurant …..well it seemed expensive to us …..7.50€ for the cheapest lunches…..spaghetti bolognaise and an omelette…..when we are used to bacalao and enchiladas patatas tapas @ 1€ each……..thats 23.80€ for our lunch and drinks on the coast compared with 5.70€ at our local………However, the weather was hot and sunny …..24◦ C in November….cant be bad !! Cooler in the mountains

After walking on the beach for an hour noting the washed out beaches from swollen arroyas (streams) from the weeks storms and broken reeds, went back to La Cañada to explore other stores……..it was far more than this …….a Parque Comercial……an enormous Mall anchored by several Hypermarkets……far to big to do in an afternoon……definitely a day trip designed for shopaholics !!

We drove back over the mountains to the house to review progress, which was impressive…….roof foundations on ready for concrete and tiles, and Sergio still painting caucho on the walls, despite no vodka or brandy …….he really is a good worker!!??!! He seems to get more work done without the drink!!!

Arrived back in the mountains at dusk for a meal, and catching up on the blog.

Good progress this week despite the rain delays.

The rain in Spain falls mainly ....

Tuesday 7^th November

It rained continuously overnight, from early evening right through to morning. We drove to the house and arrived about 10.30am to find it flooded right to the front door, with no-one working there of course. Reviewed the previous days work and noted the glass blocks were in place to form a sort of window providing a bit of light to the upstairs bathroom.

We decided to bail out the house, despite the continuing heavy rain, and tried to stem the flow with builders buckets, but were fighting a loosing battle, as all the rain falling on the 25 sq metres of the terrace was draining down to the kitchen via the 1^st floor roof and into the house. J came up with more buckets and bowls so that most of the terrace run-off could be caught and emptied next door. We were then able to get on top of the house flood and scoop/mop it up. After 2 hours or so, we had won and the house was clear and it had stopped raining.

By this time we were totally drenched to the skin and cold, so decided to go to our favourite bar for hot drinks and tapas lunch of bacalao and patata enscillada. During lunch, the heavens opened with 30 minutes of torrential rain, creating a waterfall and torrent outside the bar making it impossible to leave. We knew our makeshift buckets and bowls could not cope with this deluge, and sure enough , when it had more or less stopped and we arrived back to the house, we were back to square 1……the house had re-flooded. (later we read in newspaper headlines that our area had 157 litres per square metre……ie nearly 4000 litres of water on the terrace to be bailed out!!)

However, the task of clearing up was easier this time as it had stopped raining, and J went out to buy a new mop and bucket …..pleading mucho necesscito with the store as it was closed as also flooded . After emptying the containers on the first floor and clearing the lying water on the roof, we were able to clear up downstairs in about an hour.

Before returning to the mountains, we went to see if the river-bed road had flooded, and sure enough, the road was closed as it had become a fast flowing ford at the intersection with the river bed road that we had driven along the previous week…..see pic.

Move to the Mountains

Weekend 4^th/5^th & Monday 6^th November

This was always going to be a busy weekend , and was planned like clockwork to get everything done. On Saturday, we drove to Malaga to buy 6 glass blocks from AKI for the bathroom as they would be required Monday, and went to an internet café to book flights to Istanbul for my 60^th birthday in December.

In the afternoon, we drove up to the mountain village to view the flat. The house had deceptively small entrance, but was huge with three self contained units. The common hall led to a kitchen/diner and large terrace on one level, with a bedroom and bathroom on the next floor, with a small balcony with a washing machine …..excellent, and we said we would take it…….a snip at 300 € for the month.

There was some confusion over dates as we had said we needed for a month from 3 Nov …They suggested the following Friday, but then compromised on the Monday, which was a bit of problem for them, as they were living in the flat they were letting to us, and needed to move to one of the other parts of the house.

The views over the valley are stunning, with olive and orange groves, with eagles and falcons supposed to be soaring over the mountains, or so we have been told, but have only seen a few pigeons……….

Sunday was spent packing and at the coast posting the blog, and Monday checking with Tommy about the glass blocks …….where they should go, catching up on e mails, and moving to the mountains. We arrived about 4 pm and quickly settled in with 5 cats roaming around. In the evening, we explored the village and found a bar that did cheap tapas, although was very noisy with noisy locals.