The workshop roof is finished – and looks lovely. If you are wondering where the pics are, you’ll have to wait! I have tidied away my camera charger – and of course taking pictures of a roof aren’t enough of an artistic challenge for certain members of the family!!
I can’t help feeling sorry for Manuel. He has done a sterling job, the house roof looks great, the workshop roof is super, and yet Ian and I have been stood open-mouthed marveling at a little wall that he has built separating the workshop roof from the big barn roof. We can’t see the house roof really, however we can see this little wall, and he has painted it white and topped it with red tiles and it really does look lovely. I am sure he would prefer it if we showed the same enthusiasm about one of the bigger jobs though!
Interestingly, the snow that we had this year is changing some of the ways that builders work. Manuel treated some of the tiles with a waterproof paint where snow may collect to stop the tiles from absorbing water and cracking if it freezes. Also, he said that a lot of roof problems in the village were with new roofs, not traditionally tiled roofs. Old roofs were made with a lot of half-tube style tiles. The bottom half were laid with the rounded bit down, the top half was laid the other way with the rounded bit up. This meant that the tiles were able to move. Modern tiles ‘lock’ together and therefore cracked when the snow settled. Lots of houses lost their guttering too, as the guttering wasn’t fixed to carry the weight of snow. We have new ones coming, as do lots of others in the village, and the manufacturers are delivering several on the same day.
We’ve spent the day painting the inside, most of it is done, however we are waiting for the new cement to dry out on one side of the workshop.
The next job is likely to be the roof of the chicken shed. This is going to be a little different as we may go for a flat roof and turn it into a sun terrace. This might seem odd -as lots of Spanish people avoid the sun, however it is very common to have sun terraces where they enjoy the sun going down. Lots of houses have them and we’re thinking that seeing that we need a new roof, it will be a nice touch. Ian was remarkably positive, however I think he can see sunset photography opportunities without the need of him leaving home! Both Manuel and his Dad were here last night and said that the cost would be much the same as a normal roof (although we’d need stairs and railings, of course). They thought it was a good idea, so I think that we’ll proceed. In the meantime, they’ve stuck a pole under one of the beams in the chicken barn and told us not to touch it.
The cockerels have been split up from our hens. Both of the ladies have gone broody and the cockerels aren’t as sympathetic s they might be. In fact, they seem to regard the fact that the girls as sat quietly on their nests as being some sort of come-on! This has resulted in the cockerels stood outside the garage (or inside if they can get in) and crowing at us to let us know that they’ve been locked out the chicken barn. They come inside the garage and yodel at us from the back door. The chicks should start hatching in one week, I hope that we get a few more girls….
Oh yes, the banging noise on Saturday, when I wasn’t sure what builders were doing, was them knocking off the tiles from the windowsill and step, and replacing these with red terracotta tiles. The previous tiles were not really for outdoors, and new ones are nicely contoured so are another neat finishing touch.