Early post...workday tomorrow.

Song of the day: “Puppet on a string” by…ehm, I forgot. It’s a classic though…albeit slightly annoying.

So I’m a little early with the blog, technically I should write one tomorrow, but since tomorrow I need to work and would like to get some writing done prior to leaving this will just have to do, won’t it?

The majority of yesterday was spent working on the new storage facility. The floor is in, poured it before noon. Masonry was done on-site too, putting two layers down underneath the wooden wall we erected during the course of the day. Walls are up by now, so’s the ceiling, and as of this morning so’s the roof. Went easy enough too, looking as if it is a part of my cabin, seeing as the materials match.

No writing yesterday, since we sent a package to a publisher. It’s a relatively new company, and they don’t have a big list of what they’re looking for yet, so who knows. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll like Saving Nina. It’s possible of course, since the editor last year suggested that I sent it to this publisher. We’ll see.

I slept more than seven hours this night and my mind (and body) were agog when I woke this morning. Sure, I could have slept another ten hours or so, but I got to sleep in at long last. Yay.
Even my doggies worked along this time, sleeping well through the night, even though mom and the sibs left to go to the market this morning.

Nice summer weather today, by the way. I wouldn’t mind at all heading into the garden tonight, but since the sibs do the weekends that’s not in the schedule today. Instead we’ll hang a couple of doors in the new space, transfer the dog food into it and then maybe ad a lick of paint. I made pictures. Yay!

Darned cars.

Song of the day: “A song for whoever” by the Beautiful South. Funny song. You should check the clip out some day. I’m sure you can find it on Youtube, it’ll be worth the effort, I assure you. Heck, you might even know it. Hah.

So let’s start with the bad bit of troubling news…The Matiz is still being fixed, so we still have the loaner Astra, darn it. The Land Rover on the other hand…is also still at the garage for fixing and won’t be back until Tuesday, darn it, meaning that I’m going to have to do the distributing in the Daewoo or the friggin’ Astra on Monday, which is going to be darn frustrating for as far as I’m concerned. Seriously, have you any idea how hard it is to get in and out of tiny cars when you’re over six feet tall. Gawd, my thighs are already complaining about the upcoming exercise.

The weather is still wonderfully cool, in case you’re wondering. It allows for some decent project time, which, for the past couple of days was putting together that terrace table, and painting it with the help of tenant, who appeared to enjoy helping out.
It looks darn pretty now by the way. Like new, and nicely solid seeing as it is made of hard wood with a rather pretty design. Yes, I should be taking pictures of that too, and add it to the massive list I’m supposed to post in the near future. Grrr. They’re there, I just have to take the time to go through them, darn it.

There has been gardening, of course. Some nice tomato harvests and new zucchinis aplenty. For some reason the plants decided to start all over, so the things are everywhere again. Not bad, considering that we were worrying about harvests being over and done with.

Second project this week is making a solid, closed-off space for the dog kibble. The rat population has been rapidly growing so we need to close it up properly. Meaning that as of this morning we are digging out a section behind my cabin, pouring a concrete floor, so we can start building a small wall, a roof and a couple of doors in front of it, et voila.
Considering I always love a good project this will certainly do for this weekend.

Writing has been going slow and steady. Not too bad, though. One more page and I’ll be at ninety. Just ten more pages and then I’ll be halfway into the story, yay! It’s going well enough, I guess. The characters are deepening, getting to be more interesting…even though it is of course only a romance novel with no action in it whatsoever. Darn it.

I finished the Richard Montanari novel, and it wasn’t too bad, all things considered. It will never be my favorite genre, but it is entertaining. This morning I started on Tom Clancy’s Power play, Shadow Watch. It is fascinating to go into these different genres, especially since they are free, hah. I’m definitely seeing it as research, and I’m learning a lot.

Oh my, I dreamed about zombies again. I was a little itchy from it when I woke, which is ridiculous considering it was much like “Dawn of the Dead” and “Resident Evil” which’s movies I liked well enough. And yet, in the dream it all got to be rather intense, so I’ve been trying to get over the itchiness for the majority of the morning.

Poor Bommel appears to be feeling a bit better with the cleaned ears, so yay. Manni (little sister’s Cocker Spaniel) had to go to the vet the other day, and got operated on his ear. He had a massive tumor in it and they removed I without complications during the course of the day. Poor dog was so happy to be home he rubbed himself all over little sister’s bed. Hah.

Well, time for me to get back to work on the storage place for the dog food. Still a bit that needs to be done, and only so many hours in a day. Gotta go.

Just another day...or two.

Song of the day: “Temptation” by Wet Wet Wet. Gawd, it has been almost a year since I last had this song in my head. Great song, giving me fond memories of the time we first moved to Spain, were living here for just a short time, really. Still, beautiful song.

Okay, busy couple of days, as usual. Got to pick up our friend in Marbella again. Went with the Daewoo so we got there in record time, after which we had to drop the Daewoo off at the garage for the agreed upon repairs, while we got the Astra in return. Still don’t like the Astra, but it’s wheels so who gives a fig?

Got home in time for a quick brunch…seeing as we hadn’t had time for that prior to leaving…and then got to work on pouring concrete by the old horse paddock. Considering the Matiz is such a small, low-to-the-ground car that we are building a small carport and a drive sweep that will allow the poor thing to get out onto the big sweep without dragging over the ground. Thus pouring concrete.

Considering big brother’s wrist is still screwing around, so I had to do the detail work while he was mixing the concrete. Afterwards we did another gutter, leading towards the main waterworks. It took a little time, but the end result is rather nice. It’s slow going, but we’ll get it all done I’m sure.

Same goes for the gate, bit by bit the repairs are being done, and soon it’ll be no more trouble…I hope. Hah.

Writing. Slow but steady too, I guess. Passed eighty pages now, slowly closing the gap to half. Good solid scenes, though I am working on a variety of them at the same time, which would explain why it appears to be going incredibly slow. *sigh*
The female protagonist has a dog now, by the way; proof of writing what one knows, eh? Hah.

Watered the plants, of course, and while doing so I too the opportunity to write down some more for the book. I’d sit wherever the water needs to go, shifting it from one spot to the other, and write in-between. Got quite a bit done that way.

There was some cooking involved. Nothing special, just potatoes with veggies, so I won’t bother describing it.

At the moment I’m reading a Richard Montanari book called “Broken Angels”. It is not bad, yet not entirely my thing. I do enjoy reading the cop jargon, and his somewhat ponderous writing voice. I don’t know why I call it such, you know, ponderous, but it’s how I hear it in my head. A bass voice, in a somewhat “Law & Order” type of “statements”. Does that make any sense? It’s how I would imagine a fire and brimstone sermon to be. Hah. It doesn’t matter though, the story is fun regardless…maybe even because of that particular tone.

This particular morning was spent putting together a hardwood garden table, which worked out splendidly. I’m planning on fully restoring it so we’ll have a nice table for the horse paddock where tenant often spends her time these days. This way we’ll be able to have lunch there and keep her company.
The weather is still a little freaky. Below thirty (Celsius) temperatures, cloudy and sunny at the same time, creating a somewhat autumn atmosphere…wonderful weather for outside work, admittedly, but if fall is arriving now already it will have been a ridiculously short summer, darn it.

Bommel (Bobtail) has been troubled by ear infections, of late, so last night was spent shaving excess hair from his ears and cleaning him up a little, poor fella was really having a bad time of it, and I need to get something to clean his ears with soon.

Well, time for me to wrap this up. I’ve got a table to finish, a gate to help fix and a yard to water in just a few hours.

Again.

Song of the day: “Brim full of Asha” by Cornershop. Rather annoying actually. It just goes on and on, and on. *sigh*

Well, another workday past. It went considerably better even though starting out was a near disaster. Okay, I’m going to need to explain that one, don’t I? Well, the thing is the Deawoo still needs to go for its check up, but every time we try to get it done, something goes wrong. The last time the garage dudes didn’t have a trade in and this time, I was just about done finishing my six drops in Fuengirola when mom called to say that she’d been forced to stop because steam was coming from the hood. Some guys were telling her that she shouldn’t drive with it, so I headed back to the care sales place and informed them of the problem. I got the Deawoo back, left the Land Rover parked there and went to pick up mom and little sister.

Once there, I exchanged cars, turned up the heat, on the car sales guy’s insistence, of the borrowed Opel Astra (horrible car for me, by the way. My head was against the ceiling, for crying out loud) so I could drive it back to the lot. Got there burning from the heat, but what the hey, got an assurance that the car would be ready for another exchange at eleven in the morning, and hopped back into the Land Rover to start on my route.

Went a lot better today. I only went really wrong once during the route. A location that I ended up at least six time last Monday, but who cares. Got the entire thing done within six hours, which should be able to go down to maybe five and a half in the future once I get a hang of it. So far I have located all the drop points of the main distributor except two. One isn’t too bad, but a place called Hannibal’s keeps eluding me, darn it. I’m going to have to ask where it is, of course, but I much rather find it myself. Ah well, no helping it.

My foot was of course excruciating at the end of the evening. It started around eleven, a whine, pinch, achy thing, and by the time I got home ‘round 2 in the morning, I could barely walk. It started with the annoying bit an hour later than the last time, so I think I’m getting used to it. Hah.

Rather than write yesterday afternoon (prior to leaving an hour early because the distributor was ahead of schedule) big brother and I did some editing. So writing would have been better, but since there were only a few hours available we figured we might as well do something useful and a little less intense.

Luckily the weather wasn’t a scorcher, but it wasn’t really cool either. I worked up a proper sweat through the entire procedure and definitely had my exercise going up and down stairs, in and out buildings, streets and alleys. Yep. Who needs a gym with a job like this. Hah.

My dogs were, naturally, upset when I finally got home to pass out on the bed. Seriously, Mosha went bonkers trying to jump on my arms, Knight II tried the same and almost threw me on the ground in the process. Amri disappeared into the yard (they’d been in my cabin for a couple of hours) after one pat only, and Chaos barged into me like a proper tank. Bommel, blind as he is, did locate me upon entering, and rubbed himself against me like a cat for several minutes. Then he got tired and curled up on his cushion. Half an hour after coming home, I did the same.

Five hours later it was back on the road for me to do the village part of the route. My most recent locations are doing pretty well I’ve got to admit. Several were all gone, which should do well with the distributor/owner of the paper.
Luckily the village route (found three more locations btw) only takes a couple of hours, and big brother was nice enough to drive me, meaning I could hop in and out without bothering with parking and such. Such a relief.

Afterwards we rushed to town to the car sales place, but…yes, you’re guessing it, the Astra needs a new pump and he didn’t have any other car to loan to us while they’re looking at the Daewoo. He asked for an hour, but when we got back (decided to use it for searching that last spot of my route), meaning we have to got return tomorrow morning, again, when we go pick up our friend in Marbella.

Gawd, it’s been a busy couple of days. Well, I’ve got a gate to finish, maybe some wood to pile, being with the dogs and then ponder how much still needs to be done before the rainy season starts. *sigh*