Way back in March we picked up a pile of old tiles (azulejos). We used some of them around the tree we put in the courtyard (see Tiles) but we had plenty left. In the traditional Portuguese style we decided to cover a wall, or at least part of it behind the orange tree in the courtyard.
…and the tree hasn’t done too bad since March either
Everyone round these parts has a brick barbeque. And they are all identical. Only problem is that we think they are very ugly and also very expensive. As can be seen below. PS the bricks are actually fake so it looks even worse in the flesh.
Solution? Build one myself! Jackie is already in position to direct operations.
I’m ready! Where are the pork chops?
Done! Meanwhile the rest of the gang are resting up…
One: at last at last we have the Internet at our temporary home and what joy! Up until now we’ve been using a dongle on the laptop – the connection was slow (sometimes non existent), we were having to share (no comment) and to do any work on our website or skyping meant driving up the road to get a better connection. Great news.
Two: the builders have been plodding on. We now have new roof beams over the kitchen and some of the tiles have been replaced so that won’t fall down in a few years’ time. We were also really pleased to see that a huge pile of metal junk that we had inherited from the previous owners had been taken away.
Three: we have our shed! We were going to get someone to make a ‘proper’ one from bricks but for various reasons that fell through and I was getting fed up staring at the concrete platform we’d had put in months ago. So when a leaflet came through the letter box from Bricomarché with flat pack sheds we were there in a flash. It took us two full days to do it but we were really chuffed in the end!
The concrete pad... and some careful thinking
We seemed to have nails we didn’t need and not enough screws of a certain size but that didn’t deter us.
We only needed to dismantle it once when we got the boards mixed up...
I thought the whole thing was going to get blown over at this stage.
Neighbour Luis reckons it'll all rot in a few years...
And luckily we managed to get two licks of paint on as it’s pishing down today!
2012: 1127