Life is good, were in at last!
The driveway is cast, small retaining walls are finished and there are steps down the side of the house leading to the pump room. The electricity board arrived and put up two telegraph poles and we now have a permanent connection and then the telephone company came and connected our phone and cable TV lines. All we have to do now is find the time to buy a telephone and TV.

I organised a cleaning troop to come in on Thursday, only two turned up and were of little use but most of the building debris was cleared away. I shall have to do the rest in slow time. Then a team of eight men arrived on Friday morning, bright and early and started to cart our belongings in. This was not calm or orderly and we sustained quite a few breakages. There would have been more if it hadn’t been for the excellent packing that PSS shipping did for us. It was great fun emptying boxes and discovering the daft things we shipped; Jeff’s SD hat and ceremonial gloves was probably the most bizarre as they don’t go well with shorts and T shirt and his DJ looks a bit out of place in amongst the cotton shirts. So everything is in and we are now trying to find the best places for stuff and put together the outside furniture .

We had our first night in the house on Friday. I was so looking forward to it but in fact didn’t sleep well as I was over excited and listening to all the new noises. The toads are very loud!

Foxy is fully recovered from her spaying, stitches out and a lovely scar to show her mates. She is loving the mango season as she gets to suck on the stones and ends up with orange paws and face which is actually quite difficult to wash off. She also loves the house and has enjoyed the boxes and paper wrappings as we unpack.

The next blog should show the final look, pictures hung, beds made and all ship shape ready for inspection

This is the bit where we get to settle back and drink a few pitons. Cheers !

What a difference a week makes of relatively dry weather. Loads of finishing off jobs have been done. The best by far is the pool. The colour of the coating has given the pool an aqua tone, more turquoise than blue. The infinity edge creates a very gentle trickling sound, which will enhance the taste of drinks at sundown, no doubt.
The remaining gingerbread corner pieces are all in place and have been varnished, as have the last doors and window. Yes, the guy eventually finished his contract but not with any flair and wouldn’t take the final cheque as it was less than he was expecting- he did come back a few days later to get the cheque but was still angry.

The inside painting of the house is complete and the first few days of next week should see the place cleaned from top to bottom before we move our stuff in.
The electric gates haven’t arrived yet and the fencing around the whole of the property needs a little attention to make sure it’s secure enough to keep dogs in. Notice the “s” on dog. We plan to take Deano, a 1year old rottweiler on trial to see how we get on with him and how he gets on with foxy. He is Doreen’s dog, but by default, as he should have been going to another home but that fell through so she ended up with a dog she really didn’t want. He is a big lad, friendly but has a loud bark and looks the part. So, once we are settled we shall start the introduction process. If it doesn’t work out he will stay with Doreen and we shall start afresh with another puppy that we can train from scratch.

The next stage for us is to move in, get the place looking like home and start on the garden, which will be done in various phases as it is too big to tackle all at once. Lots of our friends have offered cuttings and shoots, so hopefully it won’t look too bare for too long. Plants grow fast and furious here and most people with gardens say it takes six months of planting, followed by years of cutting back with a machete. Can’t wait!!

We had great weather over the weekend and Monday but unfortunately no excavator. He did arrive on Wednesday, in the pouring rain and proceeded to tackle the clay. He then lost a track on his vehicle, so alas, it seemed like we were in for another week of frustrations .Luckily a man came to fix it, which meant we were back on track again,literally, with good progress towards a driveway next week
The team have ploughed on with fencing the property; we only have a 30ft stretch to complete (once the excavator moves the heap of mud!).We also have some substantial looking gateposts, with lights on top and the motorised gates are being made, perhaps ready in two weeks time.

The kitchen granite worktops are fitted and look great, the island is also finished and the final red coat of paint for the kitchen walls is done. It was all hands on deck to complete the tasks to finish off the painting and sanding on the middle floor and it looks spectacular. The guys even had a go at cleaning up the mess; we really do have a great building team.

The pool has been worked on this week with the tiling and slate work complete, so once it is cleared out and dry the diamond brite will be plastered on and then the pool filled. A job for next week I think.

Jeff’s workshop area has received some attention this week and the start of a sturdy looking bench is in place. I’m to get shelves in the laundry room, which I am actually quite excited about.
Doors, well what can I say, the guy hasn’t produced the final door and window this week, perhaps next week he says. He’s been busy, had an illness, been visiting, lost the wood, lost his machinery, lost the glass, lost his marbles and any number of other excuses you can imagine.

Foxy had her first hair cut this week and looks very much like the rat that Jeff continues to describe her as. She doesn’t look quite as cute but I should think she welcomes the cooler cut as the summer approaches. She does look a bit moth eaten now but I’m sure it will settle soon, it’s a problem us girls have when we go to a new hair dresser. The same day she had hers done I had another go at mine and produced an acceptable haircut, the weird thing was that mine was free and hers cost $100; that has to be wrong!

Wet, Wet, Wet! Our drive way would be better suited as a toboggan run; it is so muddy and slippy. This means that the digger still can’t get up and the drive still can’t be concreted. We do have gateposts though and the middle floor now has doors on the veranda and is secure.

Jeff and John have delved into the small container and found the gas cooker (at the very back), so it has been taken into the house ready to have the island built around it. It is a big range cooker, something I have always had a yearning for but realistically far too big for our needs. It has eight burners, probably four more than we need but as I told Jeff, it’s a girl thing and I love it. When they went to get the cooker on Monday morning they were very concerned that someone had taken off our lock from the container and replaced it with their own. Fortunately when we then took that padlock off we found everything was in order but for a time we feared the worst as the container contents had been on show the previous day when they were trying to find bits and pieces. It is still not clear what actually happened but it looks like someone wanted a piece of wood out of it, and when they couldn’t get hold of us thought they would just break in, only to find it impossible to get to the stacked wood at the very bottom. It’s all very odd and no one seems to be telling the real story.

Last Sunday Jeff, John and I went to Micoud to have a mornings ATV driving. It was great fun trundling through the mango plantation, meandering through the rainforest until we eventually came to the river, where we had a swim and a break for some freshly picked grapefruit and bananas. Afterwards we drove to Laborie and went to Debbie’s restaurant and had the Sunday buffet, all you can eat for £10 and that includes crab and prawn salad starters. Great value in a lovely local place. Foxy was looked after by a friend of ours and when we got back I found them on the beach, playing in the surf with her other dog Minnie, so it seems we all had a good day.

It is all very quiet on the boat now that John has gone and joined his boat for the next leg out of Antigua. It was great fun having him here; his work and attention to detail were appreciated as he took on any job that Jeff put his way.

This weekend is non-working for our builders but the plumber and electrician are in doing their final bits to the house. We were hoping to have a bit of a clean up but there is still a load of sanding to do downstairs plus painting. The fence has started to go up and doesn’t it look too much like an internment camp. Jeff met up with the window maker to get two more French doors, so we are down to the last two plus one window, which should be ready next week. What a long and frustrating haul that has been and we really could not recommend him as even his work got shoddy towards the end but we accepted it anyway just to have doors. As we get closer to the move in day this boat seems to get smaller!