9 am. 32 degrees but the water is back on Do washing up from the night before and fill up some water containers, including the kettle should anyone be insane enough to want a cup of tea.
10.30 am Water goes off, lose internet connection and the temperature has risen to almost 35 degrees in the shade.
The guests from the casita, Paul and Yvonne, have come up to the bbq room to sit in the relative cool and play dominoes. We break the news to them that the heat is set to stay until Wednesday – which is the day they fly home.
5 pm 36 degrees. It really is a day for staying inside though one of my brief excursions reveals that the vegetables are not faring well. The cabbages have collapsed into prostrate heaps, the courgette plants have dropped their large umbrella-shaped leaves into wilted woefulness and the tomato plants have shriveled up into nothingness. I wonder if there is any point in watering tonight. It certainly is a shame when things have been grown from seed and been watered for months to end so abruptly just when they were coming into prime fruitfulness. But at the end of the day, they are just vegetables and realistically, we can buy them from the supermarket although they won’t be as nice, free or convenient. I wonder how the animals are up at Justo’s though.
8 pm David has persuaded me that it is a good idea to do a little more concreting so I crawl into action.
8.03pm Julio comes down the track dressed in his running gear. 6 ft, black beard and customary red nose, he is a sight to behold dressed in white T shirt and silky red shorts slit at the hip. He wants to know what we are up to. We explain that we are trying to improve the area and hopefully alieve his fears that we are building another apartment.
As David points out to me later, people have this obsession about how almost any building would make the absolute ideal conversion to an apartment. When Justo and Carmen were telling us how they would like to sell their farm, ‘the barn would make an ideal apartments’ (yes, and a complete fortune to do), the cowshed would make an ideal apartment and they even thought that the 2m x 3m chicken house we built would ‘make an ideal apartment.’
9.30 pm Finally finished. Time to clean everything down and start watering the garden. Phuh.
Luckily it is a full moon and we can easily see where we are going. There are several areas covered by a sprinkler system we laid, but there are still a lot of plants not captured by this system and it is time consuming.
10.15 pm I get to try out the outdoor shower with cold water from the tank as there is still no running water. I am not as enthusiastic as David. Sorry no photos, please.
10.40 pm Baked beans on toast for dinner. We have had dinner later when we have been working – but not often!
11.30 pm to bed and watch a DVD of Doc Martin. Now who dreamt up that opening shot I wonder with a silhouette of Martin’s Clunes and those give-away ears.
10.30 am Water goes off, lose internet connection and the temperature has risen to almost 35 degrees in the shade.
The guests from the casita, Paul and Yvonne, have come up to the bbq room to sit in the relative cool and play dominoes. We break the news to them that the heat is set to stay until Wednesday – which is the day they fly home.
5 pm 36 degrees. It really is a day for staying inside though one of my brief excursions reveals that the vegetables are not faring well. The cabbages have collapsed into prostrate heaps, the courgette plants have dropped their large umbrella-shaped leaves into wilted woefulness and the tomato plants have shriveled up into nothingness. I wonder if there is any point in watering tonight. It certainly is a shame when things have been grown from seed and been watered for months to end so abruptly just when they were coming into prime fruitfulness. But at the end of the day, they are just vegetables and realistically, we can buy them from the supermarket although they won’t be as nice, free or convenient. I wonder how the animals are up at Justo’s though.
8 pm David has persuaded me that it is a good idea to do a little more concreting so I crawl into action.
8.03pm Julio comes down the track dressed in his running gear. 6 ft, black beard and customary red nose, he is a sight to behold dressed in white T shirt and silky red shorts slit at the hip. He wants to know what we are up to. We explain that we are trying to improve the area and hopefully alieve his fears that we are building another apartment.
As David points out to me later, people have this obsession about how almost any building would make the absolute ideal conversion to an apartment. When Justo and Carmen were telling us how they would like to sell their farm, ‘the barn would make an ideal apartments’ (yes, and a complete fortune to do), the cowshed would make an ideal apartment and they even thought that the 2m x 3m chicken house we built would ‘make an ideal apartment.’
9.30 pm Finally finished. Time to clean everything down and start watering the garden. Phuh.
Luckily it is a full moon and we can easily see where we are going. There are several areas covered by a sprinkler system we laid, but there are still a lot of plants not captured by this system and it is time consuming.
10.15 pm I get to try out the outdoor shower with cold water from the tank as there is still no running water. I am not as enthusiastic as David. Sorry no photos, please.
10.40 pm Baked beans on toast for dinner. We have had dinner later when we have been working – but not often!
11.30 pm to bed and watch a DVD of Doc Martin. Now who dreamt up that opening shot I wonder with a silhouette of Martin’s Clunes and those give-away ears.
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