Bedrock

Archive for the ‘repairs’ Category

It is very quiet here right now, all the holiday makers have long since gone, the village is much quieter except on market day and yet the weather is still holding out, cool in the mornings up but up to 30c late afternoon and still warm enough to sit outside at the pub.

I’ve just been sitting here putting together a series of photos to take down to the local council office to try to get them to come fix our road. As is the case with most things – if you want something doing…  I’d do the repairs myself but in a couple of cases the damage is extensive including a manhole cover on our roundabout.

The lakes have been well down this year, hoping for some snow over the winter to replenish them – but they’re still a sight to behold and we’ve spent a fair bit of time enjoying the scenery.

We’ll soon be spending some time in the UK (as little as possible) and we’re going to miss the area.

In recent months due to changes of people in the area, it has been incredibly peaceful (funny old thing – we have neighbours the likes of which you could not ask for better – and at the same time we had in the past for a time some of the worst people you could possibly come across – but that’s all history and things are definitely on the up and up)– the one remaining “odd” couple are at least quiet when they’re here, which is a blessing, though they did leave the most laughable attempt at a barrier in front of their property when they left after not saying a word. They put a chain in front of their Pergola for a time to tell everyone to stay away – but the Pergola fell down. Oh well, that’s for others to worry about – I should imagine the winds will sort that out over the winter.

Meanwhile the cars have been in for a valet at the local garage – good job too and we’ve generally had a marvellous summer – probably the best yet and we’ve made lots of friends.

I can’t believe how quickly the hot months have gone by, we came here in April and yet it seems like only a short time ago  A great time of year here in Galera as the trees start to change colour quite spectacularly – not wet and miserable like most of the UK – still a little summery.  I’m taking the opportunity to monitor my solar setup to see how it will cope with the sun at a lower angle. It’s all being recorded so I can view at my leisure.

Work is coming along on the cave, the builders have just completed a storage partition for Maureen (and it would seem knocked out my watering system at the same time) and upstairs has had a refit (wall re-done from scratch with insulation). On top of that we have a new wood-burning stove (not that we’ll need it for now).  The plan is to put the TV on a mounting bracket along with some new control kit so it works with our tablets, put some shelving up in the new partition and my office in the next week or so…  and get lots of household and garden stuff “filed” away. I’m also bringing some new lighting kit. Cameras are working a treat.

Maureen has made some new mirrors for the place – she’s bought the basic mirrors, a ton of small gems and other items and has given them the personal touch with glue and grout – my job is to bury them in the walls. They’re looking pretty good. Bringing our new best friend – a large tube of Gorilla glue.

I’m pleased to see the solar powered main Pergola light I built from scratch is lighting the place up every night (there’s enough power to keep it running 24 hours hours a day so right now it’s never turned  off). A little worrying that the hallway is getting as high as 26c – might need to work on that.

We’ll be there by lunchtime tomorrow, I’ve had a couple of short business trips this week (Brussels then Blackpool) and now that’s all out of the way, it’s time to start the holidays!

If you’ve been following the blog you’ll know that some of the roads around here are not owned by the local authorities and so there’s no chance they’ll fix them – yesterday neighbours Dave, Tom and I made a start on a particularly bad section of the road where the centre had lifted up and was getting to the point of being dangerous for cars with low-profile wheels.

So yesterday we started to do some filling work with stones and sand. Easy enough, but for the heat.

We had great plans to finish off our road repairs with concrete last night until I heard Maureen shout up to the neighbours “are you coming down for a drink?” – that was the end of that.

We did get to test the new LED floodlights – or one of them – very good indeed – but that was about it for productivity for the night. I’ll try all three tonight.

Don’t get me wrong, we had a great night but 8.30am this morning I was dragged out of bed to be told that the boys were over to finish the road-works.

Feeling like death warmed up, I reluctantly got dressed and off we went – 2 hours later despite at least me feeling awful, the previously fractured and frankly dangerous section of the top road is now spot-on along with another minor pothole repair further down the hill – as long as no-one drives over the new cement for a day or so. See photo above – the right side of the road was sunk in with a dangerously raised edge along the middle. 4 bags of cement, lots of sand and stones later… perfect.

Plans to go to the lake today were put on hold so I finishing my emails and spent the morning soaking in the Jacuzzi to collect rays before heading off to the Galera hotel for a very nice Hamburgerisa Completa (hamburger with everything but the kitchen sink).The Jacuzzi is now out of bounds as it’s full of chlorine for a quick clean-up. Time to tackle the usual mountain of work and otherwise-related emails.