Moving in day (24th August 2012)

Daisy enjoying the view from the bed

A cow enjoying our garden on the day we moved in

 The time has finally come!
It's almost a bit surreal at the moment, particularly as we're both very tired. We dodged the rain showers today to make a final push with moving, and Alfonso finished off the gas installation and proved to us that it all worked.







I had to interrupt the moving for a couple of minutes to laugh at the cow munching its way up our meandering back garden path. A sign of health and good living to christen the house on moving-in day, perhaps?





There's a snap here of both of us eating our first meal in the house, a giant ciabatta sandwich.

A lucky small spider got a feast of a meal this evening when this poor beetle had its kitchen inspection interrupted.

First meal in the house!

Yet another insect photo

The bed ready to be slept in for the first time.

Last few touches before moving in

 Over the past week everybody's been working full-steam, as we found out on Monday that we need to move out (and in) as soon as possible.  The chimneys are now in place and ready to be used... although nobody's tried them out yet.   The chimney 'hats' give the house an unmistakable look.

Steve's also been busy at work, and showed off his DIY skills today (most of the time in his pants).  We now have a very nicely fitted door frame and door on the main bedroom.

Those that are ready to move in...

 News a few days ago about our landlady wanting to return to her house (where we've been living the past six months), has meant that this weekend has been quite manic.

As you'll see in the next post, fitting a door took longer than expected so by the time it got dark, the glassless windows let in a lot of moths and butterflies. Here they are enjoying Daisy's back.

This is one of the local leopard butteflies, (or moth?).

... and this is the Guard-Frog, who likes to sit just by the front door.

Outside - five weeks on

Things are going fine outside too; everything looks a lot smarter than it did. There's plenty of water in the cistern and the water pump is now working.

Hopefully this week we'll get the water heater in, which will make it that bit closer to being liveable!

Most of the work on the roofed compost bins has been done and that may well provide us with photos for the next installment.

The garden, on the other hand, was very overgrown - Daisy did lots of grass & weed cutting while Steve was off racing. Her reward was seeing a flock of migrating parrots fly overhead!

The inside - five weeks on

After a month away and some kind visits to keep the builders in check courtesy of Steve's mum and the architect, it was a very pleasant surprise to step inside.

The floors are finished, the walls are painted, only the woodwork needs some varnish.

We picked up our clay chimney pipes and they'll soon be fitted to the wood-burning water heater and the stove.