Home at last!

We are now officially in residence in That Stony Place. Everything is still in a guddle and yesterday when I set my computer up I found that my monitor had stopped working.... and didn't quite manage to get the internet modem in the right place for anything like a reasonable connections speed...but Mohamed solved all my problems yesterday and I woke up this morning to a working system.

We lost Elvis the first night - he ran off as soon as we got here, evading all attempts to barricade him in, but when I went back down to the old house in the morning he was there. The girls were locked in for the night using a combination of mattresses, cushions, bookcases... and anything else to hand... Marmela got out twice but only so she could come and tell us off! The cats are all fairly settled now... though I am not sure how many of them have gone further than the roof. Elvis and Honey for sure. We need to get the cat flap fixed and then train them how to use it. Elvis just threw himself at the back door last night till we heard him, worked out what the noise was and let him in!

As I was writing this I just heard a scrabbling noise and found Aretha clinging to the outside of the back door - it has a window at the top with some ironwork and currently no glass - and she finally managed to squeeze in through the bars.

We went back to the old house yesterday afternoon and cleaned all the rooms out... though I think Mohamed and his mother are heading back today before we hand over the keys to make use of the hamman.... meanwhile I will be boiling kettles of water and .... well you don't want that much detail. I am also hoping I will find my hairbrush.

I have realised what the hallway in the house reminds me of..... we have left some of the stone wall bare (winter job is going to be removing the mud "cement" and repointing it with something less muddy) and painted the concrete verticals .... It had been nagging at me for ages what it was... this lurking memory, but it came to me on Monday night as I was sitting on the stairs having a breather. It is reminiscent of Tomb of the Eagles on Orkney - though we don't have to crawl along it on our hands and knees! I will try and get a decent photo - at the moment it is cluttered with all the boxes that I couldn't think where else to put when we first arrived.

I hope today we will have the water sorted out a bit - still only pretend running water and not drinkable but it will be better than nothing, and I guess I had better try and find a curtain for the toilet door at least!

oh and Happy New Year everyone.