Just a bit of moaning

The new roof is going on OK. The neighbour may have taken pity on us and hasn't been around to complain for nearly two weeks now though we decided against going to a village "bring food to share" event on Saturday coming just in case we bumped into him.

No it's just to moan about the state of what remains of the house. The Ecuadorian workmen, who work very much to Spanish "rules" are just so destructive. We have smashed doors, smashed tiles and lots of damage to incidental items like electrical wiring, hosepipes, wheelbarrows and in fact anything that gets in the way. They never cover anything or move it to one side. It just adds to the despair of living in filthy squalor.

The roof covering is nearly finished now, most of the tiles are in place though there is lots of cementing and plastering still to come. Today when we came home we found that they had stared to remove the old cement from the front of the house to put a different, and hopefully, better facing on the house. I was amazed what was underneath. I'd always presumed we lived in a stone shed but it looks as though the house is actually built from old bits of rubble!

There is no way that it will be complete before Maggie has to return to Ciudad Rodrigo ready to start work on 1 September.