Our friend Awa arrived on the 28th of May late at night, after leaving 4 in the morning from Rotterdam. It’s a good thing she likes driving, because I wouldn’t do it. The first weekend we visited the beach, different parks and ate a lot in the city. During the rest of the week we hiked in Montserrat, shopped and ate a lot more and most important of all catched up!
The second weekend we went to our house in Caspe, since we didn’t have a toilet there yet we decided to rent a cabin at a nearby campsite. This was a nice village called Fayón. This used to be located in a valley, but this was flooded when they built a large dam. On Friday we went to the birthday party of the neighbour boy, had some nice pie and met some more neighbours. This time a German couple. On Saturday morning we left for our house and Thomas and Awa built a frame for the outhouse. We ordered wood but since it’s quite scarce we didn’t get everything we needed.
I made the road more accessible for our car, there was some wood shrubbery that we couldn’t remove with the scythe so I cut them one by one. I also tried to close the holes in the shed between the wall and roof with some expanding foam. But this was trickier to apply than I thought. It gets pretty hot and sticks like crazy. But I managed so the last part looks alright, I didn’t have enough so we’re thinking about using cement next time. After this I was able to help with measuring wood and cut it once, but this is more Thomas’ thing. I’m pretty scared to lose my fingers in the saw, but it gets easier every time. Looking at the pictures it looks like a kit we just had to assemble, but it kept us busy for a full day. Awa has some experience with DIY and had some good ideas during the process so we were improvising along the way.
The next day we trekked to the old village, the only visible thing left was the top of the church. It was nice to take the time to explore the area. The hike was quite a challenge, especially considering the heat. It’s a bit drier and hotter during the day here than in Barcelona, so once the house is liveable a swimming pool is high on the list. We thought it was an unnecessary luxury, but maybe we can use our cistern for it at first.
All by all it was a productive weekend, but we’re still struggling finding the correct materials. So our plan is to rent a van next weekend and order everything in Barcelona. Hopefully we can make some more progress after that!
