I haven't realy found the time yet to process the trip to the states and off I am again on yet another adventure.
It all started last Thursday:
I arrived in Frankfurt with Arne and we parted there. I was picked up by Erech and Arne took the train back home. I did not have much time to rest because the car and the trailer needed to be packed for the trip up to the highlands. I am not sure how much we packed but I am sure it was more than the trailer and the car where ment to handle. We had tiles, radiators, a complete kitchen, cement, ... and a motor scooter.As long as we would not stop uphill the car started to get going quite well.
We took off Friday the next morning to drive up to Rotterdam to catch the ferry to Hull,England.It was an overnight ferry and we had a nice little room with comfortable beds. For dinner we set on deck and enjoyed a nice bottle of wine while the sun was setting.
We both were quite tired and did not manage to stay up for very long to enjoy the luxary of the ship. Early the next morning we arrived in England. We had a proper english breakfast a a little restaurant which filled us well enough to get through the day.
This is how the car was fed :) (pure rape seed oil):
At around 21:00 o clock we arrived at Croftglass Cottage, near Dufftown:
It is beautiful up here. The only thing you hear are the birds singing and the wind howling and every so often a rain shower comes along which sometimes turns into hail or even snow. I guess that's Scotland.
It is still quite cold and we don't have heating in the house. Though warm blankets and working till we drop into bed makes sure we are not getting too cold.
We have electricity but no phone and the mobiles only work in certain spots in the house.
British Telecom actually promised a phone line to be installed before May but they did not take into account that the house is in the middle of nowhere and that it might be a bit more work than just pushing a couple buttons to make it work. The lines snaped during the winter and the tel. posts they used to hang on are not high enough to meet the regulations. So, they will come in with a crew next week to put in new posts and a new line along a couple miles of road. They might have it ready on the 16th but we do not realy count on it.
Fortunately the neighbors are great people and we can just come down to user their line to get online or do phone calls.
There is more than plenty of work here to be done and we only have a month to get it all finished. We nned to put in a new heating system, build a comple bath and replace the existing kitchen with a new one.
Besides that there is an old bathroom that needs to be torn down and some wall that need to be removed to build the new one. Pretty much The floor needs to be tiled in most places and the walls need a new makeover. The windows need to be replaced, but that'll happen during the summer. The list goes on and on and on ...
So far we have pretty much been tearing out things amd the more we take out we find even more that should be fixed. Like the floor in the living room. We just wanted to put in some new pipes for the heating system and the main watter line. So we opened up the wooden floor to find out that one of the supporting beams is rotten at the end. So, we open up more to find out that they are all rotten. Great! Now we got the bare dirt floor.
No more sitting at the fireplace for a while but lot's of timber to burn. Luckily we still have another working fireplace in the dining room. We did find more spots where the timber needs to be removed. Erech was a bit down at the end of the day but we both agreed to do the job right instead of just giving it a quick fix.
Even with the cold weather, the little surprises we discover and what not, Erech and I are both greatly enjoying the time up here.
Like haveing the luch out in the sun:
or working hard just like that:
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