Courses, Christmas and computer viruses seem to have gotten in the way of updating our blog, but finally we've found the time to get round to it. Since our last post at the end of November there has been a lot of progress: foundations are down, drainage systems have been put in, we have running water and the garage walls are now being built.

We've not got a picture of the walls yet, but here's what it looked like a week ago...

There's also a very exciting picture of our drainage system in the garage! The brick box will have a grate over the top of it eventually and should collect the water that runs down the hill before (we hope) it goes into the garage. The tube that you can see at the bottom of the picture will be behind one of the walls - the holes are so that water can drain into it through a layer of gravel into the tube and help prevent the wall from getting too wet (something the house we're living in at the moment could really do with!).

A shopping list

Today

Perhaps slightly more expensive than your average shopping list!

Ditches and Marbles

Once the level of the garage was decided on, more digging was still to be done this time in the form of ditches for walls and foundations. The neighbour's dogs, "Canica" and "Tuerca" (Marble and Nut), did their best to get in the way, but they were probably just trying to be friendly!

Measuring up

Mid November 2009

Hector showed us that you don't need a spirit level and in fact a long hosepipe and some water does an even better job! The first set of strings were put up for the garage and we started contemplating just how low the garage should go.

Nothing goes to waste

Early November 2009

Two large trees that Hector and Artemio felled were put to use, although our dreams of using the trunks as pillars in our house were put to an end when we were told it's illegal to remove wood from your land even for treating, and it's common to be fined for doing so. Nevertheless, a neighbour brought round his chainsaw and turned the trees into a big bunch of planks and posts, which could be used in the short term.

Digging goes on...

Early November 2009

Our keen builders Hector and Artemio seemed to make light work of finishing off the digging of the garage space, which made our months of occasional work look rather pathetic! The problem was getting the earth out - lorry drivers feared the steep access track especially as we had weeks and weeks of rain.

Planning Permission Palaver

A substantial part of Summer 2009 was taken up by trying our best to get the plans approved and get planning permission. After our millionth trip and paying someone 500 pesos for their signature, not to mention handing in plans that bare rather little resemblance to the house we're going to build (at least on the inside), we finally managed to get the all-important bit of paper.

Our new wheelbarrow

April 2009

The trusty Tracker places a new wheelbarrow on its back and we continue with the digging-out of the garage/car park.

Only after having shifted several tonnes of earth by hand, we found out that in the 1980s the plot of land next to ours had belonged to a friend of Steve's mum, who had taken it upon herself to dig out enough earth to build her house on and plonk it right on the great mound we had been trying to get rid of!

Cardboard: beats 3D virtual tours!

January 2009

A couple of meetings with Horacio and some long conversations later, he showed up with the first version of these plans. "I'm afraid I don't know how to make 3D Virtual tours so I stick to cardboard instead!" And a fine job it does! Here you can see the revised plans and some photos of the early model.

Finding an Architect

December 2008

We wanted to be sure we found the right architect, and it took a number of months to do so.

Looking on the internet for information on dry toilets, we came across this:

http://bakirita.blogs.com/xico/files/cacofobia.pdf

Horacio Albalat was a name we had heard before and after seeing the presentation we felt we had to get in touch. It turned out to be an excellent move!

The natives

During the cleaning we both came across some pretty impressive neighbours, some of which escaped the camera lens unlike these chaps.

We also discovered some hostile plants including what they call "hortiga" here, which at one point swelled Steve's leg up so much that his shoes didn't fit him and he had trouble walking.

Topographical Study

Late Autumn 2008

Ingeniero Ricardo did a good job of hurrying us up with the macheteing so that he could do a topographical study of the whole plot.

Learning to use a machete

Autumn 2008

It's amazing what you can do with a machete! We didn't touch any of the big trees at this point but most of the bushy undergrowth came down and rotted impressively quickly leaving an almost clean plot just a few weeks later.

June 2008

Right: Daisy in the thick of it!

Below: The front of our plot of land soon after we bought it.