Well maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration but over the last week there have been visible changes to the house. In addition to plastering all the interior walls the men are finishing off the exterior and all the floors have been cemented ready for tiling. Also the units in the bathroom and kitchen are being made and they are waterproofing the flat roof. And they are finally getting rid of the builder’s rubble lying outside the house. All this is being done by an expanded workforce of up to 7 men rather than the usual 2 who have done the majority of the work.

In addition we have also had the carpenter round who will do all the interior doors and the blacksmith who will be making the spiral staircase and the grills on the upstairs windows. It seems that our continued earbashing of the builder is finally paying dividends!

Meanwhile the veggie patch is benefiting from a week of all out sun. We’ve had some carrots and I was amazed at how much tastier they were to bought ones. The salad leaves continue to sprout and Jackie even managed to leave a few strawberries for me. The beans and peas are coming through as well.

Compare the picture below to the one from the post on 21st April.

Given that there is so much action on the house at the moment (adding to the noise is a lot of pneumatic drilling to get rid of a few pesky big rocks outside the French windows) it is surprising that a couple of Black Redstarts have built a nest in the old letter box. Well actually they built the nest a few weeks ago. Well now the eggs have hatched and there are 4 fluffy chicks inside. We were a bit worried that all the noise would disturb them but they seem to have thrived. Here’s two of them waiting to be fed.

I think I mentioned a while ago that two wrens were building a nest on the balcony at our rented house. I think I neglected to mention that our adopted cats managed to grab and eat one, right in our living room :-(. However, two more must have moved in or the widow(er) found a new partner as the new couple have also managed to rear four chicks and these have recently been seen flying in and out of their tiny nest.

We’ve got video footage of the redstarts which you can see on the video page.