This afternoon saw David attacking the greenhouse. Berna stepped in giving instructions and generally getting in the way but, to be fair, he aquitted himself very well at the age of 73, himself breaking lumps of concrete and yanking steel tubes out of the ground. I kept a safe distance from it all until it was time for four of us to lift the structure up and carry it to its new site. Berna quipped that it was just like the Semana Santa procession, only without the funny hats!

But don't think I haven't been doing my bit this week. Sawing up the timber pallets for firewood took a lot of time and effort. I also secured the windmill sails with new steel guys, and fitted a new post box!

I am really keen to get the finca tidied up so we now have a skip for the rubbish. The decent rocks I am collecting for future stone wall building projects. I took the opportunity of getting some sand delivered with the skip for building work. The next day was very windy and the sand started to migrate like a little sand dune. Hence the pallets thrown around it. Not a problem that I have encountered before!

The kitchen is coming on slowly. The cupboards were installed at a strange angle and the carpenter was summoned to put it right. Still waiting for the cupboard doors to be fitted. The worktop will be granite, a very nice warm yellow (Wendy calls it orange - we see colours differently). The electrician has done a lot of re-wiring and putting in new power points and lights. The trailing wires and dangerous connections that we inherited have been done away with. 

We should have a JCB tomorrow to help clear up and also to dig a drainage ditch outside the front wall. Berna gave me some very nice tomatoes from his friend's finca the other week. I have asked him to arrange for me to have a tour of his greenhouse. Next Thursday is Christmas so I doubt if I will post a blog next week. 

It is now just over two months from when we bought the windmill. I suppose we have done quite a lot in the time and we still have another six weeks before we have to leave our rented house. But I am starting to worry that we have a lot to do before we move in.....

Sure enough there are green seedlings springing up everywhere following all the rain. The small true leaves look familiar but I have not yet identified them. I met someone at the weekend who said that around their finca in La Oliva there will be great swathes of white Marguerite daisies. I am hoping for the same. At the weekend we took a walk up onto the hill behind the finca. This was the view.

The aloe vera has also turned from brown to green (below left). I haven't yet worked out what to do with the 800 or so plants that we have. Probably advertise them for sale on 'Segundamano' (which is a bit like Gumtree or Preloved in the UK) for someone starting out in growing aloe vera. Growing and processing aloe vera, and keeping goats for cheese making are important agricultural enterprises here. 
This is our front lawn here on the right.

Looking back to last week's post my plan was to pull down a section of the wall to create a new access to the fields, and to move the greenhouse. Unfortunately the greenhouse hasn't moved but the wall is down! After much pounding with sledgehammers to no avail it finally succumbed to being pulled over by attaching a rope to a hook on the front of my truck.
We have put in a water pipe with taps all around the garden area which is visible here.

Berna's son Jorge has joined us, and is doing a cracking job of finishing off the gas boiler cabinet, the water pump housing, and making the new lighting and power cable runs. I had understood from Berna that he has been working at Mercadona supermarket on Lanzarote. Poor guy, a skilled builder stacking shelves in the supermarket. But no, another error of communication. He is in fact building a Mercadona supermarket on Lanzarote. Here he is getting to know Wendy.

Another newbie is David. He is the 'peon' who arrived last Friday and who has been making a great job of painting the outside walls. I think 'peon' is a bit unkind as the dictionary describes a 'peon' as a menial labourer or a person of negligible social status. Whatever, he has worked like a Trojan getting through 75 litres of paint. He has made a huge difference over the past week to how the finca looks.

Our builder, Berna, has given us photographs taken at different stages during the construction of the windmill. I believe this was during the winter of 2003. These were copies of pictures, and I have taken pictures of these pictures so you will excuse the quality. My good friend Peter has asked me to post pictures a little larger, so here goes. This first one is looking from the original 'cuarto de aperos', or tool store, and is up to the first (bedroom) floor level.

The picture below shows the pouring of concrete over the steel reinforcing to complete the first level. About 40 cubic metres of poured concrete went into building the windmill. The total cost to build the windmill ten years ago was around €140,000. The builder, reportedly, made little profit which makes the price of €130,000 which we paid for the windmill, plus other buildings and contents, plus the land, very cheap indeed.

Here below they are raising the walls with concrete blocks. the picture on the right shows the 'cuarto de aperos' with an open terrace to the front. It has since been enclosed. You can also see here, if you look closely, that 'builder's bum' is indeed a global phenomenon.

The roof rafters are in place along with the axle for the windmill sails.

The roof is on. You can see that the original PV solar panels were mounted on the terrace. It is as well that there is no longer this clutter on the terrace since it is a great feature to be able to step from the bedroom onto a terrace from where one can look out over the surrounding countryside.

And here it is plastered and painted with the windmill sails being craned into position.

Back to the present, and it is still raining.

But five minutes later and the sun comes out.....

The bad weather has really slowed progress. Painting the outside of the windmill will need a 'cherry picker' to reach the roof, but the ground is at present so soft it would be in danger of tipping over. However all the plumbing work was finished today. We now have a water meter on our land, rather than on the other side of the road which was a crazy idea. (Although, in the process of re-laying the pipes it looked as though we had been somehow taking our neighbour's water. It seems the previous had free water as well as free electricity). Also, we have a functioning back up water tank with pump holding about six or seven cubic metres. The back up gas boiler has been connected and we have a new rain shower in the bathroom.  The mains water pressure is plentiful, about 4.5 bars so I am looking forward to my first shower. 

I have decided to employ a 'peon' for a couple of weeks to get ahead with some of the outside jobs; including painting the outside finca walls. This week I need to break down a section of wall to create the new access into the back fields and move the small greenhouse. If only the rain would stop.....