Gazpacho

Gazpacho you buy here in milk cartons. Very good.

Oil part 3

The day before yesterday was spent oiling and oiling. Today it is wind and possibly rainy, so we need the windows back in. But, the 100% tung oil is not the big success I was hoping for. Where did my shine go?

I should have applied it thinner, and I should have wiped the oil off after half an hour. But, I was lazy. Now I need to wait a few days till it has cured a bit more, then scrub, a light sanding, and back to my 50-50% mix of tung oil and Xylazel. Grmbl.

The wood is of course properly protected, but it's not as beautiful as it was.

Putting the windows and shutters back was today's job. I'm exhausted. Pff.

Oil part 2

This morning, up at 7 for the second coat of oil. Yesterday it was too warm, so no progress there.

← Look, it was like this a few days ago, behind the mosquito net.

And this is today, after the second coat oil. (First layer a full tin of Xylazel, topped up with tung-oil (+10%), the second layer is half that tin, topped up again with tung-oil, so more than 50% tung-oil.)

And the window itself.

And the other windows and shutters, in the workshop. See how they rest on their hinges on the floor, and with a knob to the wall, or with their glass onto something else.

Ventilador

Even though we have a dry climate here, and pretty nice weather today, the cellar is a bit dampish, and we're not fond of dampish.

So, putting the solar panel to work..

to feed this ventilator, cunningly duct-taped to the (haha) duct to the outsode world, see the red arrow in the top picture,

 which exhausts at the back of the house above ground. Let the drying begin!

House cocktail (Burray! Hraveau!)

K

An indispensable item in any household is the house cocktail.

As you do.

This one came into existence because the rosé I bought wasn't very good. Then what to do. Well, in this household, there are two options:
1. Add a drop of peach liqueur
2. Add a drop or two of Campari.

This rosé has a bit of fizz, so I thought about Aperol Spritz. So, this is solution no. 2: Campari.

Half the volume is cold water. With gas if you have them. We don't have gas.

(burp)

Weather

Oh dear oh dear. How awful.

Here the weather is not all well: as you can see it's quite windy, so the barbecue tonight is a slight worry. We'll live.

It is, however, too warm to further oil any wood. It's not easy doing nothing much..

no bbq. Too windy.

Destaple part 2

> "Oil tomorrow. Tung!"

Well, no. There are quite a few more window frames that are in need of first aid. Apparently the house was plastered over later with quite a thick layer of plaster. Even over the edges of the wooden window frames. And, over older staples, that were left behind in big numbers. They were swines, to mistreat such beautiful wood by simply putting in staples, leaving them behind, rusting. They leave behind dark stripes and dots (holes!) that are hard to sand away, if at all.

So, I am chipping away the plaster, and removing the old staples, Then sand, coarse and fine. The edge around the windows is quite soft chalky material, I can remove it with an old screwdriver easily. The wood that was hidden has not suffered. No rot. Just a bit greyish. Nice wood!

I'll oil it till it can take no more. Then I'll restore the chalky stuff.

I'm in doubt whether I should stain the wood a bit dark(er). There is quite a colour difference between the areas where I removed the tired sun-dried top layer and the areas that were not in the sun. The old layer seems to have a dark colour of itself. My Tung oil and friends have just a light honey-colour. My first priority is to protect the wood again, but still, the appearance is important too.

White wijn

And here the first white wine that agrees with us. € 2,15 no less. (Mercadona)

Something to enjoy with the wine.

Newer new sandalias

Can't walk on one new sandalia.. (from Italy, which is a kind of Spain, too.)

Rain

Whut? Whut?

A bit of rain! Unique!

Destaple

This house has a lot of wood. Wooden windows, wooden shutters, wooden window frames, wooden cupboards, a wooden work surface in the kitchen of about 8 meters, wooden doors, etc. The state is alright, though not terribly well maintained the past few years.

Like here, on the sun side. And we have a lot of sun. But maybe I have said that already.

On the outside it's not better. Au contraire. It is quite worse, because quite some windows have mosquito nets stapled to the outside. As mosquito net material does not last long that has been repeated a few times. And you obviously do not remove the old staples. So now I encounter them. All of them.

And, as each window in Spain has a thick iron racks ("rejas" in Spanish), it's not so easy to reach them. But I can, with a tiny mirror. And a knife to pry the staples a bit, a small screwdriver to do more prying, and a big screwdriver for even more prying. Then pliers to do the actual plieing.

And then you get this.

Admit it, this looks better already..

A surprise is that at the outside, between the stone wall and the window frame wood there is a cavity of about 1 cm, that was filled with something like gypsum or lime mortar. It was brittle enough to fall out here and there by just using the sander, which I have cunningly stuck through the rejas. The remaining stuff in the joints I could easily remove with just a small screwdriver. Which is nice, as I can now treat the wood that was behind this white stuff.

So what should I put back? Lime mortar? Gypsum? Those who dare to mention silicone sealant will be severely punished.

Oil tomorrow. Tung!

Terraza Mas Impermeabilizante

Today we applied another coat of our beautiful red Terrazas paint to make the patio more waterproof, as the car will need to be parked underneath it later.

By the way, you see the weather is really nice today?

Today we painted the patio with another coat of that nice red Terrazas paint to make it more waterproof. It needs to shelter the car later, so waterproofing is good.

The weather is still very nice, by the way. 

Wine / No whine

This one we got as a present from out neighbour: top! VERY good. No idea where you can buy this one, and how much...

This one is just from the Mercadona supermarket, for €3,00 no less. Mr. Gort would call this one "parkerisée", as it has an obvious taste of wood, but we like that. Certainly for 3 euro.

And this one is the deal of the week: €1,80 for a very good rosé.

And, sorry, no, a good white one we have not yet found. Yes, this one, available in NL at Gall&Gall for € 13,00.

BBQ

The first time using a BBQ. And yes, as soon as

the BBQ is hot, the height-adjustment mechanism is stuck.

Not a wild boar after all. And no, this isn't a small sea bream, the BBQ is ridiculously large.

/ No wild boar after all. This isn't a small sea bream, it's the BBQ that is vast.

Hmm. No dishwasher. 

/ Hmm, no dishwasher.

@!**Grr! BBQ

This BBQ is part of the inventory. Big enough for a big party.

20 kilo iron and stone. And a grill that is adjustable in height with a crank, were it not that the gears slip and the grill is stuck and tilted. It cost a few hours, a big hammer, ball bearing grease, and a lot of swearing to get it moving.

The gears are forced onto the other thing with a few pieces of wood now. Else the thing does CRICK!, and we bl**dy h*ll, etc.

Wild boar tonight!

Or a dorade.