However, with the weekend over, it was back to the day job for both of us - me in the coolness of the office and Stuart in the positively chilly apartment. The apartment is certainly the coolest place in the house - we found it a haven of cool yesterday, a perfect retreat from the baking temperatures outside.
Even in my dark and dingy office, there was no need for a jumper today (today was the first time since we arrived that I haven't even felt the need to put a cardi on), nor socks and slippers!
Having had Friday off, there was lots of work to catch up on today - for both of us.
We each put in a solid 3 hours before lunch, but stopped for sustenance and to prepare tonight's dinner (we are trying to get into a routine whereby we cook, or at least prep, our dinner at lunchtime to save time in the evening and allow us more strimming/weeding/gardening/blogging time). Despite it feeling much warmer in the office today than of late, it was still a huge shock to open the front door at lunchtime and step out into the heat. It felt like opening an oven door. We ate in the shade of our umbrella, but even in the shade it was sweltering.
After lunch it was back to work for a while longer - until Stuart came up to tell me that he was going to pay a visit to the bins. I gave him a forlorn look, prompting him to ask if I would like to go with him (he takes me to ALL the best places :-)). I jumped at the chance to see the outside world, albeit it briefly - besides which, he was going to look for our water meter again, and I figured it would be a good idea for me to know where it was as well.
The water meter saga has been rumbling on for a few days now. The previous owners had described where it was when we came to look at the house last year - not handily located immediately outside the house as it often is in the UK, but down the hill a fair way, and in order to get to it you have to drive down the road, turn down past the back of the first house you come to, and the water meter is somewhere down that track. We thought we had envisaged its exact location.
On Friday, Michelle gave us a similar explanation as to where it is, and again, we thought we had its exact location nailed in our minds. Part of the reason for discussing the water meter on Friday was that Andrea (the geometre) wanted us to take a photograph of it and email it to him so that he has all the relevant numbers and readings to be able to sort out the transfer of the water supply into our names. We duly went to find it and photograph it on our way home on Friday afternoon - but were stumped when we couldn't see anything that looked like a water meter. Odd.
Stuart mentioned to Michelle in an email that we'd looked but failed to find the water meter, and we had another attempt at looking for it on Saturday - this time Stuart got out of the car and walked up a rather unpromising, overgrown track, but found nothing. By the time we got home on Saturday, Michelle had paid us a visit and stuck a note in our front door giving us our meter reading! She later emailed Stuart to explain where the meter was - up the grassy slope.
We were still confused, but today we were adamant we would not be beaten! This time, we both got out of the car and climbed the grassy, overgrown track, and kept going until eventually what should we spy but a water meter somewhat hidden in the undergrowth! We'd been on the right track all along, just hadn't realised we needed to go as far as we did. Thank goodness for Michelle's kindness and thoughtfulness!!
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| Not the easiest water meter to access, but we found it in the end! |
After that excitement, it was back to work for another couple of hours. I won't bore you with my office work, but in the apartment Stuart sanded and painted the ceiling, mopped the floor, painted the window frame in the shower room, put the bedroom furniture back in, and adjusted and hung the wardrobe curtains. I had visions of him getting out my old hand-operated Singer sewing machine to make the necessary adjustments, but actually he has become a bit of a dab hand with the iron and a piece of Wonderweb, and in no time at all he had hemmed (Wonderwebbed) and hung the curtains.
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| Looking more homely. |
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| Expertly hung curtains over the new wardrobe. |
We mentioned the other day that Stuart had contacted a carpenter about fitting new doors in the apartment (we still need to get back to him to arrange a quote). This is why:
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| That little square of white you can see in the corner is actually a hole to the outside world. Certainly large enough for mice, lizards and who knows what else. Yikes. |
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| Fresh air and bugs anyone? |
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| Nice to have a breeze, but perhaps not through the door - when it's closed. |
I finally closed up my office for the day at 5.30pm and went to suit and boot and head for the terraces for a little more clearing. I find it frustrating being tied to the office all day - both because I get a bit stir crazy being stuck on my backside all day, and because I miss feeling like I've done something really productive (even though what I am doing is productive in its own way) - so I have started looking forward to heading out for an hour or two's manual labour at the end of my office day.
Even at 5.30pm, the heat was draining and, just like yesterday, the sweat poured off me as I attempted to clear a little more of the terraces using the hedge trimmer (the only time I've ever sweated as much is in RPM/spin classes, but at least in those I wasn't wearing protective goggles that steamed up and started collecting little pools of water [sweat] in them!!). I managed to stick at it for about an hour and a half before exhaustion, overheating and attack-of-the-flies got the better of me. Still, an hour and a half's clearing meant a modest amount more progress, and with a little bit of work each day, we will hopefully start to see some rewards.
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| Attractive. This look is all the rage around our house. |
Tomorrow is forecast to be er... hot and sunny. Again. But rest assured it will be business as usual in the office and the apartment.
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