Cave life continues during this weird and daunting time we find ourselves in. As the virus persists to threaten our lives, John and I are finding our happiness in the immediate part of the world we call home. Our cave has been our saviour. It has given us shelter, room to move, repair jobs to do and new ideas to design and build.
I don’t think we will ever be in a position where we can sit back and say, ‘ We are done’. It’s never going to happen but perhaps that’s a good thing…. it keeps us on our toes and certainly keeps us busy. We may have aching backs and bad legs between us but…. we carry on, as you do.
I have several projects ongoing at the moment. One of these projects is the building of a new table with seats within the rear garden area. The actual design of this table has changed 4 times from when I first sketched out a design on my computer. After transferring the design to the garden by placing breeze blocks to give me an idea of size and shape I decided that the first two designs were a little complicated (and that is slightly understated), How about a circular table with a base to match? All sounds good until you ask the local metal man if it’s possible to make a round frame for the table top so we can fit bardos within the frame and then tile. He simply said no – not possible! Plan B… how about 6 sided table top? That was a ‘yes’ so off he went. In the meantime I had a friend build a circular base for me as I really do not want to try cutting breeze blocks with a cutter. I will try most things and have my tools all lined up in the garage but not a large cutter that was needed to cut these bricks. I have my limits!
As of last week we have had the frame delivered and I have placed it on the base to give me an idea of the size. I am so pleased with the overall look – thankfully. Now… what size should the seats be? That appears to be a straightforward question and one that should be easily answered. So why did I find it so hard? Well, firstly the patio area for the table is not level. It runs down in two directions. As the table will be fairly level, (thanks Steve), the seats around the table will be differing heights. Eventually, I decided that after measuring the height of each of the 6 sides and working out the gap that would be needed between the top of the seat and bottom of the table, it became easier.
Ok, I’ve got the height sorted. Now for working out how far from the actual edge of the table the seats should be? They cannot be too close as someone like me would never get in. They cannot be too far away as smaller people would never reach their food or drinks! It was a few days of measuring and moving blocks about before I decided on what I think will be a good compromise and I’m sticking to it. Anyone that cannot reach the table can sit on my lap! So, the blocks have been positioned and tomorrow I am going to start to concrete them in.
Post note: the seats will have to wait as I was called to have my first jab yesterday and not quite feeling up to cementing today. Perhaps tomorrow.
Stay safe everyone.
human failings – especially on this particular mothers day? Please remember, I am not saying my way is the right way but sharing what appears to be working for me …. so far.
for example I would like to spring clean my bathroom.
also enjoyed the many live events hosted on 
know that the more sofa days I have the less positive I get.
Gym? Well why not. Some people do like to ensure their fitness does not deteriorate during their holidays! We have tried to cater for most tastes with 5 different machines – treadmill, rowing machine, bike etc and a small set of hand weights.
However, when you live in a cave, as we do, there are other options. You could attack the cave wall with a hammer and chisel and carve yourself a shelf in the rock wall. I debated long and hard about this option; the thought of how deep the recess would need to be to house all the electrical devices was not that appealing to me. Chiselling out a hole in the wall is not an easy task especially as the rock can be very solid, a hammer may not crack the nut! I have also been reliably informed that a small hole creates masses of debris by our lovely neighbour Steve. He should know as he has a few recess shelves in his own cave. So, what other option do I have?
How we’ve survived the last few weeks I will never know. It has been seriously hard! Chris, my son, asked me how and what was so hard and I just couldn’t put into words why we felt that way! Perhaps it is our age, perhaps our health or perhaps we underestimated the energy we would need to move lock stock and barrel to a new country, again. Perhaps it was due to all three.
ow that they would truly have a great 11 day ‘holiday’ was such a relief. Charlie has one mission in life which is to clean everyone and is a fairly confident boy but Barney is, and always has been, a very fearful boy. Walking with Barney outside of his own safe domain can be a nightmare. God forbid if there is a parked car on the street that is not normally parked there. He would simply refuse to pass this highly dangerous situation and use all his strength to return to the safety of his domain. Being 38 kilos and having a strong front end (having 2 operations on his back hips made the front half a power pack), if Barney wants to go, you go to. This is all down to him having a bad start in life in Cyprus as a pup and we were very worried that he would not survive the journey but with Tony and Anne taking charge all went so much better than we could have imagined, Thank you so much to you both. You come highly recommended by us all.
If you recall one of the caves is fully reformed and is almost ready to move into. This will be our home until our original cave is complete. Once we are settled in we can work on the front area of the caves to transform it into an area of peace and tranquility with sun beds, hammocks and outside eating areas. The second cave next door is unreformed, but once complete, will provide us with an additional rental cave for anyone wishing to stay in a truly amazing area. These two caves will be known as Cueva de la Paz 1 and Cueva de la Paz 2. (Cave of Peace).
If I had asked myself this question a few years ago my answer would have been a resounding ‘never‘!
When a person channels their anger and hurt at another person who is close to them, feelings get that intense they cannot see or hear anything other than the thoughts in their own head. They wear blinkers and will not accept any action or words that don’t fit into their self made picture of events locked away in their minds. They only hear certain words in a sentence which are then used against you to justify their anger. The problem with this is that everything gets taken out of context and it does not matter how many times you try and explain, nothing else gets heard. You are talking to a brick wall that has gone deaf. Their pain, self made or not, is just far to intense.
makingdreams.me 