• 

Hello. I’m writing this post from a cruise ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The itinerary takes us from Spain and Portugal, through the Canary Islands, to the Virgin Islands, and ends in Puerto Rico. We just left Tenerife in the Canary Islands, and our next stop is Tortola in the British Virgin Islands, so we have five solid days at sea ahead of us. I’m trying not to think about that too much. Cruising between islands is not scary to me but crossing the Atlantic for five days without seeing land is a bit daunting.

Fortunately, there’s lots to keep us distracted on this floating monstrosity. There are 17 options for dining, including two main dining rooms, a steak restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, a sushi bar, an Italian restaurant, an Irish pub, a French bistro, a Brazilian Churrascaria, and a noodle bar. And, of course, the massive buffet that serves three meals a day. It’s a challenge to keep our eating in check, but we are doing OK with it. And I have to admit, it’s been nice to have a break from French food for awhile (I’m not getting anywhere near that French bistro). Last night we enjoyed filet mignon and it was the best steak I’ve had in years.

Aside from eating, there’s a bucketload of entertainment onboard: nightly shows ranging from big production singing and dancing, to a Cirque-du-Soleil style show, to comedians and a hypnotist, and mellow piano-bar type background music. If we tire of all that, we can participate in dance lessons, trivia games, karaoke, bingo, and various other competitions around the pool (and if you know me, you know that I will participate in none of the above). It’s all a bit Las Vegas-y for my taste, but we do enjoy a cruise every once in long while when the itinerary will take us to places we’ve never been. This cruise is 16 days and has been a nice escape from the rainy weather at home.

While we’re away, our builder has been pretty good about sending us regular updates on what’s going on at our house. And there’s been a lot going on. This past week they removed the old roof tiles and also much of the structure of the roof itself. Those beams were over 300 years old and needed to be rebuilt in order to hold the new roof. He’s been sending me photos, which, at this point, look like a house about to fall down.

But we soldier on, as they say. At this point, the house has to get worse before it gets better.

• 

• 

Home now.

The post above was written during the cruise, but due to sketchy wifi on the ship, I couldn’t upload it. We are home now (yay) and just came back from visiting the house.

It’s now been 208 days since the work started on our house. Naturally, people are starting to ask, “surely your house is almost done by now?” Well, take a look at these photos. It’s far from done, but the guys are working hard and making progress every day. All the rooms now have cement floors (floor tile to come later), so no more mud puddles in the house.

• 

• 

• 

• 

And, to our surprise, a couple of the interior walls have already been “rendered,” which means they have used a cement compound to fill in the spaces between the rocks in the wall. Some walls will be completely covered, and some will show the rocks. We decided to have no upper cabinets on one wall in the kitchen because the rocks look so good.

• 

• 

The roofing on the bedroom addition is finished and it looks great.

• 

• 

Tomorrow, we meet with our builder and the roofer/mayor (it always amuses me that our village mayor is our roofer). One of the things we will talk about is that we have lost one of the two chimneys on the house. It was in bad shape, and apparently when they were removing the old tiles, the chimney just crumbled apart. This is disappointing, because the front of the house has a nice symmetry, and having only one chimney now looks wrong. Technically it’s not really needed since we aren’t planning to use any fireplaces on that side of the house – all but one had been plastered over and/or removed. But I want to ask if it’s possible to replace the chimney on that side, just for the sake of symmetry.

• 

• 

The next several weeks will involve the replacement of the roof frame and then installation of the tiles — and maybe a replacement chimney. The roofer had hoped to be done before Christmas, but it seems that’s not to be.

In the meantime, Merry Christmas to you, or happy whatever you celebrate this time of year. It’s time to relax with family or friends and enjoy the season.