On the build site
This has been another slow week on the building site. TJ’s crew were there to clean up the basement slab and pour the final concrete, for the front porch. The porch slab sits above a section of the basement which will remain “unfinished” as both a storage area and also our shelter in case of tornados or other catastrophes. So now we have at least one part of the building with a roof. The basement floor looks very good, textured like yorkstone – once we have walls, windows and ceiling, they will look good with decorative persian-style carpets,
Not that we have been totally idle this week ourselves. After a number of economising revisions to the windows plan, we finalised this and paid up front for the 51 windows (to lock in the prices to 2013 levels and get an extra discount for cash in advance). To avoid future maintenance, the windows have a dark brown aluminium exterior with a 30 year guarantee. Inside, they are wooden, matching the heart pine flooring we will be installing eventually. We have also been inspecting plumbing, selected (in principle) the taps, showers and other bits and pieces – which leads on to a much more immediate solution – having selected the visible bits (all of the same brand), the plumber knows what sort of valves to install as the walls go up. The framing crew have been organised and will start putting up walls on Tuesday. The necessary building materials are due for delivery on Monday. So, things are really moving ahead.
New Year Celebrations at Cavender Creek
We were wondering what to do with ourselves for New Year’s Eve. For the last ten years or so we have spent the time with a group of wonderful Ealing friends for a “bring a course” dinner party – things were starting to feel a bit flat at the thought of a night of just ourselves. But a couple of weeks back we went out to a local winery and one thing led to another – we ended up with an invitation to the winery party!
Cavender Creek is the nearest winery to both our current home and the building site, so that’s a good location. It’s also very close to Cavender Creek Baptist Church, where our landlord is the minister (given Baptist views on temperance, least said soonest mended!). As well as vines, there is also a herd of donkeys there – hence the labels on the bottles all feature a donkey.
We had a great evening and met lots of new friends. Our fame as the funny English people (Lisa has honorary English status here!) who have moved into the area has obviously gone before us. One lady said to me “you’re Robin, the English guy who is serious about wine” before we had even been introduced! At midnight Raymond (who owns the winery) fired his impressive cannon whilst in the distance we could hear a distant trumpet and celebratory gunfire. It’s an interesting reflection on Georgia that whilst it is perfectly OK to fire off guns, even a cannon if you have one, fireworks are not permitted for public safety reasons.
Come back next week and find out if the building project is really moving ahead again. We are also promised some seriously cold weather, so that may delay things a bit!