Friday fun at the Finca

Hola,

Hands up anyone who's had a "Bleeecchhh" moment in the last week or so.

Ugh, I'm with you and part of it is because I've sucked wind at keeping up with my goal of three posts a week, but here I am, as I don't want the spiral to corkscrew out of control.

For the last few months, Mirjam, my much, much better half, and I, have hovered around a cottage that she's renovating - with the help of a local contractor.

The work at the 300+ year-old finca was scheduled to be completed in August, yes six months ago, but life and work over here is a wee bit slower than anywhere else I've ever lived. Sometimes, it's bureaucracy, sometimes it's weather conditions, and in this part of Andalusia, sometimes it's olives.

The contractor informed Mirjam in October that he wouldn't be working for the next couple of months (ah yeah, the weather is freezing, makes sense I said,) but nope. It's olive-picking season in our neck of the woods, he said, and so off he went to pick olives for the next eight weeks!

Now that most of the olives are off the trees, Alonso is back at work. Over the last four weeks, he's worked like a possessed man with a one-week deadline, and we may even have water at the finca by June 29th!

The good news is that Mirjam and I could start removing small stuff from boxes and large furniture from the garage. Within a bunch of hours, we semi-decorated the upstairs bedroom and a living room downstairs. We had a brilliant day getting down and dirty and enjoyed our first lunch out on the terraza.

Now that we've broken the seal, we're heading back for another "moving-in-slowly" day soon. There'll be more dust to sweep, more awkward couch seats to maneuver through small doors - and more sun to soak up at the end of a well-worked day.

Can't wait.

Saving the candle holders while being attacked by the olive tree

Hungry work

I'll be finished in a minute, honest.

Lunch on a cardboard box. Can't beat it with a stick!

Colorful is as colorful does :)

Mattress topper may be a wee bit big, but the beams are perfect

Dust? What dust!!

Colorful wallpaper meet shy blue door in the corner...

300 years ago, the locals were a bit smaller.

Awesome heater under the window for winter