We have builders back on site.  Not the original ones, mind you.  We don’t want to see them again any time soon.  If ever.  Bernard has found us someone new and we’re doing a small alteration.

When we decided to downsize to a house with a small manageable garden, I believed I’d get by with only a garden service company every fortnight.  The small toilet and handbasin next to the garage would then have been more than adequate.  But during the moving process we ‘borrowed’ William, a young, enthusiastic Malawian man who works for friends of ours once a week.

William helped us in all sorts of ways both when we packed up the old house and put things into storage.  When we eventually moved into this house  and needed to collect  various potted plants and other garden paraphernalia which had been in the care of  long-suffering friends, we borrowed him again.

William showed himself to have great initiative and to cut a long story short, he is now our once-a-week gardener.  As our exceptionally hot summer dragged on and on, I started to feel the need of providing him with a shower rather than just a basin and I spent some time thinking about ways we could extend the little bathroom to accommodate one.

I asked Bernard about it and he came up with an excellent idea.  Our garage is extra- big and he suggested knocking an opening through the garage/bathroom wall and building the the shower cubicle out into the extra garage space.  It meant that neither the basin nor toilet needed to move and was quite the simplest and best option.

So that is what it taking place right now.  This little job has had little impact on us and the workmen tidy up so thoroughly each night, you’d hardly know they had been here at all.  And I think it will make a big difference to William when it’s finished.

The garden is growing beautifully despite the heat and water restrictions.  Desperately hot days have been interspersed with some spectacular and violent Highveld summer storms bringing drenching rains of several millimetres at a time.

Summer Storm building up

This is what the garden looks like now:

Fortunately the carefully thought out drainage on the south side of the house has worked well.  Unfortunately we have sprung a leak over the bay window on the north side and now need to get that roof more or less redone.

Inside, we’re making progress on a weekly basis.  Pictures have been hung and small changes made to the arrangement of furniture.  I decided to offset the yellow wood dining room table by using ghost chairs rather than more conventional wooden ones.  They look good and pick up on the glass of the staircase balustrades:

I like the way the Ghost chairs leave the view almost unimpeded.

After a Storm: The view from our balcony.