Filthy weather - in every sense!

This week we have been in the midst of some filthy weather - filthy both figuratively (mild, but very, very wet, and at times squally), but also filthy in the literal sense: our kitchen/living room floor (er... and the sofa and various other pieces of furniture) is covered in mud as our dear Reggie insists on going out in the garden in the rain then coming back in with muddy paws and shaking himself dry next to all the furniture before we've had a chance to catch him with the towel - and then proceeding to sit on the floor with a stick he's picked out of the kindling basket and chewing it into pieces to leave strewn decoratively across the floor. 

It turned wet on Monday and isn't due to be dry again until Tuesday - 7 days of uninterrupted wetness. It occurred to me this week that I've never spent so much time cleaning as I have in this house, and yet at the same time, I've never lived in such a filthy house - when living in a house heated by wood-fired stoves with their associated ash that gets everywhere and sharing that house with a large dog, with a front door that opens directly from the garden into the living quarters of the house... time spent cleaning does NOT seem to be proportionate to cleanliness!! (Matters have not been helped either by the number of household jobs that have required drilling into masonry/chipping away at plaster/mixing mortar.. and so on.)

But with all the frustrations of wet muddy floors and surfaces indoors, I can't help but stop to marvel at how magical the low cloud makes things look - the swirling mists change the view constantly, making it look a little different every time you look out the window:

Wet weather, of course, puts the kibosh on outdoor activities (more or less), and this weekend the frustrations of the weather not playing nicely with us have been compounded by having no means of transport and thus being stranded at the house. Our car is currently in the garage after having played up spectacularly this week (more of which later) - we'd like to think its is in the garage being fixed, but history with this car has taught us to limit our expectations.

So, what have we managed to achieve this week? Well, with Monday being only the first of the wet days there was still some 'oomph' in us that had yet to be washed away, and in the afternoon we decided to get our waterproof gear on and head back down to the veg beds to finish tidying up the terraces we'd dug with David & Sarah on Sunday and start marking out some more.

We made some good progress - we created a stone retaining wall at the end of the veg beds dug with David & Sarah to stop the bank we'd dug into collapsing back into the beds, and we duly finished those beds off and marked out some more. It was truly wet and muddy work though, and despite the relatively mild temperature, the dampness of everything (hats, gloves, trousers) soon made it feel perishingly cold. We stuck at it for a couple of hours though, before coming indoors for hot showers and clean, dry clothes, and felt pleased with what we'd managed to achieve despite the best attempts of the weather.

Indoors we saw more progress in the utility room, with Stuart boxing in the pipework that runs through the room, delivering hot water both to the apartment below and the bathroom above; adding skirting boards; and creating a clothes hanger for the drying of laundry in the winter.

The car chose Tuesday afternoon to start messing us around again. Our friends David & Sarah had started to move into their new house and on Tuesday they were bringing the majority of their furniture and belongings from where it has been in storage for two years to the new house – and they had asked if we would lend a hand. Of course we'd said yes – they’ve been such a huge help and support to us on so many occasions, we owe them a huge amount, and we really wanted to help. So come 4.30pm, we got ourselves ready, got into the car, started the engine… and then sat on the driveway going nowhere for 25 minutes.

Unlike on other occasions, this time the problem wasn't that the car wouldn't start, but that the engine was misfiring so badly that it didn't even have the power to reverse out of its space and turn around.

Stuart revved the engine, with his foot to the floor, but next to nothing was happening, and as soon as he took his foot off the clutch the engine would splutter and conk out. After 25 minutes we finally admitted defeat and trudged back to the house to break the news to our friends that we couldn't be of help to them.

The next day the misfiring problem was still happening (in fact, it has been ongoing for a very long time - well over a year - it's just never before been enough of a problem to cause more than a bit of a loss in power going up hill and some noticeable shuddering when the engine is left idling) but this time Stuart managed to get it turned around and managed to limp along the drive and then downhill all the way to the garage - a different one this time (the fifth the car has been to so far) in the hopes that a different mechanic might have a different take on the problem and might actually be able to do something helpful.

So that was us without a car for the weekend, and with the rain hammering down outside, I felt like a caged tiger - I hadn't left the house (further than a walk around in the woods with Reggie) since last Sunday! We also had guests to worry about - we'd taken a last-minute booking from an American couple who wanted to come for a night and do some walking around the valley. It really wasn't the sort of weather you'd want to be out walking in and, indeed. for a period on Saturday afternoon the wind got up and tore around the valley - with sufficient strength and intensity to have brought one of our chestnut trees down, it turns out.

We did brave the weather ourselves for a short period on Saturday morning - we needed to collect our weekly bread order from Amanda's and, having missed our weekly shopping trip on Friday due to having no transport, we also needed a couple of emergency items to tide us over for the weekend. We duly set out with raincoats and umbrella and squelched our way down to the shop in the village. For me it was refreshing to see some different scenery, albeit less than a kilometre from the house, and the fresh air was invigorating. We could have done without the rain, but as Brits we felt we should just suck it up. When we arrived at the shop, just minutes before they were due to close up, Samantha admonished us not for squelching across the clean floor she'd just finished sweeping but for walking down in the rain and told us we should have asked her to come and drop the bread off to us. She then tried to give us a lift back up the hill, but she was busy tidying up the shop and we didn't want to bother her, and politely refused - it wasn't really so bad after all and the exercise would be good for us. Just as we were saying our goodbyes though, Amanda pulled up in her car outside, took one look at us and told us to get into the car - no arguments! Well, what could we do? While we were perfectly prepared for the walk home, we were both quite relieved to get into the dry car and just a couple of minutes later we were being dropped off at the gates by our kind friend.

We hunkered down for the rest of the day on Saturday and did little more than watch films, do a bit of cooking, and listen to the rain pounding on the skylight.

There was little change in the weather overnight, and Sunday morning brought yet more rain, if anything heavier than Saturday's, although thankfully the wind had dropped.

After waving off our guests - who despite the weather had really enjoyed their flying visit, loved the apartment, the view, and the valley - we took Reggie for a wet run around the woods, coming across the fallen chestnut tree on the upper donkey track on our way around.

 

More firewood for next winter.

We were slightly more productive on Sunday than we had been on Saturday (one day seems to be our upper limit of relaxing/doing next-to-nothing), and managed to make a Tuscan white bean soup for our lunches in the week ahead, finish off the boxing-in of the pipes in the utility room, and scrape out all the old silicone and some of the grout from around the bath and the bathroom sink and re-silicone it all again, leaving it looking fresher and a lot more appealing.

Tuscan white bean soup.

"It's still raining." 

So, as we start the eighth day in a row of wet rainy weather, we are looking forward to the week ahead in which - starting tomorrow - we are promised seven days in a row of fine weather. Time to get back into the veg garden and to the great outdoors (and finally time to clean the floors!).