Day 63 - Finally

Great to see the back of them! Exactly nine weeks instead of the planned three weeks. Snow, wind and rain, the odd delay in getting supplies all added to the misery. One of the hardest things to endure was that the main bedroom has two large roof windows which were removed from the start and then covered with various bits of insulation and plastic sheet added to the existing horrible glass fibre insulation and many years of dirt, dust, mice birds, spiders, dandelion pollen, birch throw offs and goodness knows what else. These windows were not replaced until the last moment and also being old one's refitted, they perhaps were not so easy to get 100% waterproof. So a few nights and days of buckets until the source of the problem found.

However now we are there, or at least as good as. One window needs to have an external blind fitted (last minute change by us), one downpipe on the guttering, a small cover on the inside of the roof where the external stainless steel central heating chimney goes through the roof and then finally the electricity company has to renew the covers around their mast and the cable ties where they go through the roof and of course remove the protection covers on the four overhead electricity lines.

There is also one more, perhaps a bit messy, job that is not strictly part of the build although it was supposed to be done during the main work. Two normal wall windows in the main bedroom will be replaced. They have not yet arrived but as it was ordered and will be fitted by the same village company who provided the scaffolding, they have left a small section standing to make the window replacement a bit easier.

Although pleased to see the back of them when they (Robert the builder followed by the scaffolding/window crew) left, we will probably miss them tomorrow (not). The building site was actually always jovial, friendly and quiet.There were no injuries, I seem to remember once getting a plaster and one of the children's waterproof with Snow White motive was overdoing it.  No shouting, bad tempers, tantrums, swearing (apart from the totally legal and probably approved by the catholic church, Bavarian everyday swearing such as:  Himmiherrgottsackelzementzefixhallelujamileckstamarschscheissglumppvarreggts


This for instance is used when a nail gets bent when hammering. Gets longer if you happen to have your thumb in the way.



So our thanks to Capo Robert who also engaged electrician Stefan and who made a great leading team on the two major projects and also Mark with his scaffolding and window business who actually gave us the hint to approach Robert when we were looking for quotes.

The three of them were aided for various jobs and at various times by Niklas, Andreas, Gabriel, Bernie, Life (! not pronounced as English word), Christof and without being over patronising Angie running around cleaning up all day, providing hot cooked lunch , adequate supplies of mineral water, coke, occasional iced coffee and from time to time an end of work, very cool beer. When she was not around I tried my best to stand in but I could tell my plastic supermarket warmed up Frankfurter sausages in a roll did not go down quite as well as her Pork Fillet in cream sauce with rice and fresh salad. My home cultured and made Kefir health smoothies hardly got the recognition they deserved.

And very finally, the whole episode was initiated, planned, monitored, financed, organised and managed by Angie. I didn't (wasn't allowed to) have a say in anything except for a little bit on the PV but that was minimal. Poor girl had to run around dealing with very fastidious banks, three in all - our own bank in Munich, one in Ottobeuren and a state bank in Berlin who also deal with the support payments one gets back. I was allowed to do the Tax Office work and registering the PV system with the authorities. Actually a bit complicated as we have to register a form of company as we now produce and sell electricity. However as we "steal" some of the electricity for private use, we are required to pay tax on this benefit, in the same way one would a company car! Also now have to do monthly VAT returns but we get all the VAT back on the entire purchase of the PV system, sadly not the re-roofing.

But my efforts are nothing to the stress, dozen balls in the air juggling, psychological terror of the whole thing which Angie went through.

And very finally, the proof it was a "good" event - none of the five cats left us, neither of the two dogs who continually walked around the site hoping for a few strokes or a thrown frisbee, got hit by falling tiles or wood planks. The horses enjoyed not having to be ridden and the chickens loved scratching around in the dust, sawdust and general mess.