.... And we're in!

Yesterday was a big day for us because it was the day we moved into our house!  Admittedly it was a bit premature as the hostel was full and there was nowhere for us to sleep but it was great to take that step and sleep over in our own (half built) house.  Things don't work perfectly and there are about a million niggly things that we realize haven't been done or now need to be done after having spent a night there, but on the whole, we are thrilled! It's a great feeling to be in our own space amongst our own things and even cooler to think that we are even using our own energy and our own water (well sort of).

So the stage we are at now is: walls for the first half all built, rendered and stuccoed with wiring and piping all fitted.  The roof is on and sealed and the gutters are more or less collecting rainwater. The pump is installed to fill the header tank, the solar panels are on and connected up.  The floors are all laid and one of the two bathrooms have been fully installed. The windows are all fitted and the interior doors are bought and ready, just need to be screwed in. All of Tony's gadgets are working, the weather station, the water level meter and the wind turbine was working fine until it took it's second and more dramatic fall from the roof, breaking off all of it's wings.

We are still missing the fuse box, a kitchen and basically all the furniture and decorative stuff, including ceilings! We are also having some water filter issues and are still having to borrow mains water from the neighbours. But we're getting there.


The sunset over the trees is great with plenty of birds swooping in and out and the smell of damp, fresh, country nighttime is delicious.  There are millions of stars too and the moon is much brighter than in the city. We sat outside and had breakfast watching the sun come up over the volcano this morning and forgot all about the stresses and frustrations of the whole process so far. Our dog Ally spends every spare minute bounding around in the grass and ferns, day or night and the hens are allowed to roam freely when we're there. It really feels a world away from Popayan and the hostels and although the whole place is a complete mess and quite a way from finished yet, we're feeling really pretty pleased with ourselves.

Through the night however, we discovered a couple of minor set backs: 
- We found a huge spider that Tony was not prepared to remove from the house.
- Our toilet leaks into our garage below when flushed.
- The electricity can just switch itself off without warning because of a loose connection.
- A bat spent half the night flapping around in our ceilingless roof.
- The neighbour's dogs do in fact bark all night long and when they do finally go to sleep at around 4.30am, Silvio the friendly neighbourhood mini-rooster takes over. There's nothing mini about his cockadoodling.

Despite all of that though, I cant wait to get back there tonight!