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kitchen tap is in! waiting for oven then we can get the oak top started

things moving quickly now yannis finished inside today and starts the swimming pool and terrace tomorrow so they were filling in the holes left by the concrete guys(sloppy) ready for the rough plaster which will then be topped by cementacornia.Looking forward to seeing the infinity pool at work! if it does of course…meanwhile the other team (mavronides by name are starting to build the stone wall which leads off the pool  vangelis and his mate are realy lovely boys but they brought a labourer with them today who was a bit of a case so i had to tell them that if he didnt behave not to bring him tomorrow.and i have banned them all from drinking coffee inside got coffee splashes on my untreated floor arrrgh.floor treatment arrives tomorrow i hope and will paint it straight on. Meanwhile plumbers have come and i have made the big decision to have solar powered water heating. Originally the bathroom roof was supposed to be a tiled extension of the bedroom roof but it somehow got lost in the final plan stage so we have  a flat roof facing south above the bathrooms so i cant think of an excuse not to have one! And of course environmentaly(and financialy) it would be crazy not to so although not keen on seeing plumbing outside its there! You can only see it from the road and you have no view of it at all from the terraces around the house. …So the two brothers christos and nicos turned up today in high winds to instance unfortunately the boys were plastering the staircase so they couldnt go up and rather than come back tomorrow they decided to take it up two sets of home made ladders…great idea but of course we got here by turning the ladders to face the wall and using the reverse side as a slide.. ingenuity beats technology-often! 

so the bathrooms are done just waiting for the plaster to dry and the walls are up in the kitchen for the worksurface. tomorrow they should be finished inside…maybe

at last the floor is down in the living room!

The other nesting animals in my house dimitri and andreas clean off the roof before the stone floor goes down.Its baking hot and the outside workers are hibernating and even in the cool of the living room the glue is going off at an alarming rate leading to a fine display of greek swearing but the floor is started in the living room the bench is getting there in the bathroom and we are waiting for the electrician to move a few plugs so we can build the frame of the kitchen. yannis has been told they have to get on with it now need to finish quickly so no more slipping away for a day somewhere else… at least thats the theory

so the swallows still feeding hope they hurry up and fly. and the boys are building the bench in the bathrooms out of cement.but its heatwave time so the next two days are out!

its the red rumped swallow of course! its milotechelidona in greek. thought it may have been the cliff swallow which is a very rare visitor from the americas but its not!On the house yannis has been building the bench in the bathroom but unfortunately put a hole in the water pipe so we had much nashing of teeth and loss of face but the plumber came quickly and its start again. And we designed the kitchen together yesterday and had to do a bit of rejiggling so we will now have a free standing fridge but i think it will work ! The carpenter came ,helpfully he is called yannis too, and we explained the belfast sink idea and he thinks seeing i want so many mad things it will be better if he builds it on site.which is fine by me.The outside builders have given up they were just frying so doubt if much will happen before the end of the week now…the water is at amaranto and will probably have to get in it on the way back from glossa..its hot!

so this colour might be a little better brilliant bit of retouching gives the feeling of the window frame! There is a heatwave coming so trying to plan swimming pool plastering and the pool engineer at the same time as pool will crack if its not filled soon after plastering and of course the engineer has to do his stuff before the pool is filled! Two other items of vague interest is that the house is still cool inside despite it being 37 today so wondering if air-con is required! over 40C on tuesday is forecast so that will be the real test.The other thing is that i have swallows nesting in the downstairs bedroom i am hoping they get a move on and fly off but the nest is completely different from the nest the swallows built in my house in norfolk! are there two brands of swallow or do they come over all igloo when they are in greece?

the time has come to choose the paint so here is top choice at the end of the colour chart a bluey greyey chalki colour…. and meantime the stone is up in the living room and tomoroow the mt athos grouting begins.it will be much lighter making it all feel more in keeping ..

Work is flying on the inside part of the living room wall which will give scale to the fireplace ,which has looked a bit frightening standing by itself, the living room walls are about 60cm ( 2ft thick) and the end wall is now stone all through with a waterproof cement layer in the middle. Just got the old chestnut beam that we used for the fireplace sliced to make the lintel above the window of course yannis didnt tell me he was starting the stone work and needed a lintel so there was the usual running around finding people and the wood and getting it cut requiring the usual nashing of teeeth. still its done and hopefully the stone will be finished today and yannis is going to do special athos armaloi or grouting between the stones ! dont know what this means but its to do with the style of finish that they have on mount athos! and its very specialized (apparently)