On the longest day of the year, summer was just getting going and I was trying to get my greenhouse ready to plant. Dave had been away so I’d spent two weeks in the hottest weather we’ve had here dragging in chestnut posts, digging six post holes almost 1m deep, setting the posts in position and hammering rocks in to back-fill the holes. By the time he got back the structure was up and I was proud to have built something good on my own. Even Dave thought it looked well-constructed, which was praise indeed!

Finished!

Digging the last post hole

Adding the frame

The tomatoes, peppers, chillies, physalis, tomatillos and aubergines went in the greenhouse and seemed happy in their new home. The pumpkins got planted out and we were harvesting spring veggies too. It hardly rained over the whole summer and autumn and I had to water a lot. The forests and fields managed to stay green, although there was much less grass than usual and the farmers had to buy in hay for their cows.

The garden in full growth

Poppies

Carrot harvest

Three sisters (corn, squash and beans)

Baby pumpkin

Lots of baby pumpkins

Brassicas

Parsnip and sun choke

Drying onions

Greenhouse growing up

Velvet queen sunflower

With all the dry weather, our water supply was going from a torrent to a trickle and at one point in October it stopped flowing. After being without water for a while, we got in touch with the town hall and they sent people up straight away to sort it out. The next day it started flowing again! It turned out that there was a leak in the pipe and the water just wasn’t getting to us, which was a relief. But the lack of rain has been an issue this year, the rivers and streams held out but only just.

When we started work on the roof in mid November, we’d had our first few days of winter rain and a couple of frosts. It was beautiful autumn weather, the hot low sun bringing out the colours in the forest as the leaves turned. Then it really started to rain and it just didn’t seem to stop! It rained and rained and the paths turned into rivers and the streams turned into torrents and weak section of stone walls have been tumbling down into paths. Up at our place, the barn has been leaking and the walls are starting to fall down. All around the house is mud, mud, mud. And our poor tent is still up because we haven’t got anywhere to put everything and it’s going green and mouldy, which is awful.

When it hasn’t been raining, it’s been snowing! This has been great fun and has made for even more dramatic views of the mountains.

Autumn and winter are a fruitful time for the garden. Even though I have almost never weeded, have sometimes forgotten to water and often neglected to harvest, the efforts early in the year have been paying off. Even the greenhouse is still going strong now – I’ve still been harvesting tomatoes, peppers, chillies and physalis, although the plants are definitely looking like they’ve had enough now that we’ve had a fair few frosts and it’s almost January!

Outside, there are lots of ocas to dig up, as well as sun chokes, parsnips, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, kale, red cabbage and romanesco cauliflower. Of course we’ve got a stash of pumpkins, carrots and beetroot too, so we’ve been eating lots of lovely winter soups, stews and currys. I’ll be planting garlic soon and the onions and winter cabbage that are already in the ground are looking like they’re happy to survive the winter.

It’s been great to learn what went well and what didn’t this year. I’m going to be more selective about what I grow next year and keep to a smaller, better managed area of the garden. The well-constructed beds produced a lot more food and required less watering. The star producer this year was the sun chokes (also called Jerusalem artichokes but bear zero resemblance) – I dug up one plant yesterday and harvested 4kg! They were really no effort at all, I just stuck little chunks of root in the ground and up they popped. They taste so good roasted. The ocas have been great too – they are also no effort to grow and produced well, although I think they would have done better if some stray horses hadn’t eaten all their leaves right before they put all that energy down into their tasty tubers! Maybe my smaller garden next year needs a fence…

The wild boar did come into the garden once, but they only dug up a tiny patch of bare ground where I’d already harvested. In the field they have been slightly more destructive, but the farmer is more annoyed about that than we are.

Dave thinks we shouldn’t keep a garden next year because it’s time consuming and we have so much other work to do. He does have a point… We still have to build the front wall of the house, make the entire inside floor lower, put in the mezzanine level, order and install the windows, do all the plumbing and electrics off-grid, build a bathroom wall and put in two custom staircases. And then we can start to fit the kitchen and bathroom. I’m tired just thinking about it!

Having said that, I’m still going to keep a garden next year, sorry Dave! It brings me so much joy, I don’t think I can let the seasons pass me by without planting any seeds.

And so today is the shortest day. The sun came up over the hill at two minutes to ten and it will go down at exactly 5pm. From tomorrow the days are getting longer and before I know it I’ll be planting again. Happy solstice everyone!

-Anna

Having thought we’d have to put the roof works on pause until January, we had a few unexpected breaks in the rain and were able to progress a little.

The first job we wanted done was to get the second corner tiled so that we would only need one tarp to cover the unfinished bit. We were busy with that one morning – as usual Duran was on the roof and we would be passing him tiles as he needed them. If he ran out there would be cries of “TEJA!” and if you brought him an old one he didn’t like the look of, he’d say it was ugly and you’d have to go and find some pretty ones instead. If you brought one he took real dislike to he’d mutter to himself “this one is ugly like a demon”, but sometimes he’d use it anyway. I still haven’t worked out what makes an old tile pretty or ugly!

That day we did a bit but then over lunch when the boys were away it suddenly started raining and Dave and I clambered to get the tarps on as fast as possible, slipping and sliding on the tarp whilst the raindrops were soaking into the chipboard. A tiny bit of water came inside – nothing major, but it did put a halt to work that afternoon.

Last corner done

We took advantage of our rain days to go and buy a new power tool – a reciprocating saw to do the round holes in the roof! It’s great and I’m sure it will be put to good use after the roof is done too.

Then a few days later the forecast was for a clear afternoon, so we started at 1pm and managed to get quite a bit done. Dave was going to be leaving for the UK the next day and we didn’t want to do the hole-cutting without him because he’s the only one with the accuracy and patience to cut them nicely! So he was busy all day prepping and chopping and keeping the rest of us in line. We got loads done and it went very well indeed. By the end of the day, we had the sun tunnel, Velux window and chimney all in place and even got a bit more tiling done too.

Dave cutting holes

Three holes cut

Chimney placement

Once Dave had left, I spent the weekend harvesting and processing some garden veggies before starting up again on Monday morning with the promise of sunshine – finally! Having had a glorious Sunday as foretold, I was expecting to finish the roof on Monday. But we started under a blanket of cloud, spent the morning placing tiles in the drizzle and covered it up again to stop work at lunchtime because it was raining. It kept raining all afternoon and all night and the roads and paths became rivers once again. Ugh.

But today was good. After a misty start, the sun came out and we finished the top row of tiles with a beautiful view. All we had to do was place the final big tiles on the apex and we were done by midday! Then a neighbour came over with home made pizza and hot chocolate and we enjoyed a chat and some food before doing some finishing touches and cleaning up. And just like that, we have a waterproof roof – hurray! I won’t say that it’s finished exactly, there’s still quite a bit to do, especially inside, but the roof itself is on and the workmen are done so the rest is over to us…

Waterproof roof

-Anna

All summer and autumn I pestered the builders about the roof to no avail. So November came around and we found a house to rent in the village for the winter, which has made our lives so much more comfortable. Then out of the blue on the 12th of November, I got a text that said, “We start Tuesday”. And sure enough, on Tuesday morning at 9 o’clock sharp, they walked down the field to the back of the house, said hello and started taking tiles off the roof. Since then, we’ve been working non-stop when the sun has been shining and resting on our laurels when it’s been raining.

The first two weeks we had good weather – and it was exhausting! But with two paid workers, Dave and I and some help from our friend Jules, we got things done pretty quickly. The tiles came off, the slatted wood came off, then the old beams were removed and the shelf above the balcony came out. Before we knew it, two huge new beams were being installed on the front corners and it was time to put the whole thing back together again.

First tiles coming off

And then there was light!

Tile piles getting big

Old beams to come out

Front getting dismantled

New corner beams going in

Wood delivery

Chainsawing to fit

The two main sides of the roof were relatively simple and the new beams went in fast, getting chocked up or chiselled into the old side beams as required to make them all level. Then we put a huge new beam in at the front and replaced the shelf above the balcony.

New beams side 1

New beams side 2

Shelf above balcony

Shelf above balcony

Next up was the front part of the roof, which proved to be more difficult. This is where the old roof used to have a steep section then a less steep section to allow it to come out further than the side corners and shade the balcony whilst still lining up with the two sides. The builders were intent on having it all come down at one angle, but still have it line up with the sides and come out as far as before. Clearly this was a physical impossibility. Dave was away that day getting the MOT and the two builders called for ‘Grandad’ (a seasoned roofer) to come and help. This meant that I was alone on the roof with three Spanish builders trying to explain to them why the beams wouldn’t sit straight with each other. They didn’t get it. Instead, they kept trying ridiculous solutions that didn’t work, then scratching their heads and saying how strange this bit of roof was. [ARGH!]

After some time, they finally agreed on a solution so bizarre I couldn’t even explain it if I wanted to, but that involved re-chocking one entire side of completed roof and setting one of the front beams squint instead of square to the front of the house. “Yes I think that’s the best thing to do”, said Duran to the other two, “even though we’ve angered the blonde one.”

And so they went about putting the front beams on and I tried to shake off my anger and help because that would be the quickest way to find out whether it was going to work or not. As the afternoon wore on, we cut and placed beams and watched the front part of the roof take on its predicted Pringle-like form as the builders scratched their heads, at a loss as to how this could be happening. [Sigh]

The problematic front of roof

The next day I was able to approach things more rationally and could see that the new front section did in fact give us more room inside whilst still providing the same amount of shade to the balcony. Most of the distortion was minimal and wouldn’t be visible in the end, so the only problem was that the last two beams at each end stuck up a lot more than the others, which looked rather odd. I suggested that they be chiselled into the big beam, the builders agreed and everyone was happy with the outcome. Phew.

The most boring part was doing the walls. On three sides, the stone walls had to be raised up around the joists to make the whole thing weather-tight. We spent a few days mixing lime mortar, hauling rocks and building up the walls.

Building up stone walls between beams

After that, the next step was to add the ‘sandwich’. These are panels made of three stuck-together layers. The bottom layer is wood panelling, the middle layer is insulation, the top layer is chipboard. It’s fast to put on, gives you an instant finish inside and an outside surface that’s ready to tile. Ours has 8cm insulation instead of the typical 2 or 3, which will serve us well in summer and winter.

Nobody here seems to understand why we’re spending more than is typical here trying to insulate our roof properly. We keep getting asked why we’ve opted for such fat sandwich insulation, or for triple-glazed roof windows. To me it just seems obvious! An extra 800€ now (maybe 5% of the total cost) and we will have to chop less firewood every single year. Of course if you had a big house and all those numbers got doubled or tripled, that’s a different matter! But luckily we have a small house that we can afford to do well.

Once the sandwich was on, there was a gap in the apex to fill neatly with little bits of sandwich – that was a precision job for Dave that took all day. In the meantime, the builders were fitting the gutters and nailing down waterproof under-tile material called onduline. They got one side done before it started raining and we had to cover the roof in tarps and have a week off.

Sandwich delivery!

First side went well

Second side going on

From inside (with light coming in from gap in apex)

Apex gap sealed

Guttering

Side gutters done

First onduline going down

Just in time for the rain!

Cover up that corner!

Just when I was marvelling at how fast things were going, it was time to fit the first Velux roof window. This was pretty much an all day job. It started with the builders doing it how they always do it, us looking at it and then deciding that wasn’t how we wanted it done. Dave was getting frustrated because he found their work style infuriating and couldn’t communicate with them. He kept getting the Velux booklet out and pointing at the instructions, to which Duran would say “That book is filled with a thousand lies”, or “Oh my god if he gets that booklet out again…!” Although this was all rather amusing, I was getting tired of Dave’s attitude and on top of that, our new window looked like shit. Over lunch, Dave and I agreed on what we wanted and decided we’d ask for it to be changed.

Thankfully Duran was receptive to our request and we all got on and fixed it together. It ended up looking fantastic and Dave and I were glowing with renewed confidence in our friendly builders and our own decision-making. Hopefully the window on the other side will go a bit quicker.

Once the window was in, we could glue down tiles down all around it. We have opted for new tiles underneath for easier and more waterproof construction, but old tiles on top so that the roof maintains its original rustic aesthetic. Having spent all that extra money on insulation, the builders were very confused about why we weren’t spending a tiny bit extra on more new tiles. But still, by the end of that day, the first of three sides was complete! Yay! Then we looked at the forecast and covered it all up for another week whilst we got our first snow of the season.

First side done

Window in

Roof covered in tarps

Snowy

Charlie was very excited about her first snow experience

The snow melted and the sun came out and we went back to work getting the front waterproof. Guttering, onduline and tiles were installed and then two sides were complete.

Lovely view

Now December has arrived and it has been raining a lot. By the look of the forecast, I think the roof is going to have stay covered in tarps until January, which is a shame because I think with two more days of work we could get it finished. Ah well, such is life – especially if you start work on your roof in mid-November!

-Anna