This is a house transformed!  On the approach, I note it is now white and not grey – that is because the external and internal walls have been plastered.  The rubble has been cleared away too.

Four weeks on and I find John laying the under-floor heating (despite an aggravating knee problem).  Importing the system from the UK apparently saved over a third of the cost to buy it locally and the bonus being the instructions are in English, this was one of the deciding factors to do it himself, all 900 metres!  John has four days to finish the installation as the builders are scheduled to level the floor on Thursday and as soon as the floor is dry he plans to start tiling.

The electrician has wired the whole house - almost, coloured flex poke out of the round socket holes that form part of the electrical labyrinth running through the walls.  The electrician will need to return to wire-up the cellar because John, a little too ahead of himself tiled the floor before the electrician managed to get there.

John’s on site most mornings at first light around 6.00 am with two pauses in the day, one to walk Zak and the other for a spot of lunch though sometimes this is eaten on-the-hoof.  That said, the long hours, sweat and toil appears to suit him, he is as fit as a fiddle and sports a tan equal to any hard labourer.

As per last months wager the hens are first home.  Eight pullets are happily clucking away and some are so content with their glossy new house they have started to deliver the goods!  One or two have flown the fence and sampled John’s vegetable patch, although there is more than enough to go around John is not sharing and has clipped their wings!  Had any hens ventured inside the poly tunnel I doubt any would have made it out alive.  Not only is the heat overwhelming, it is like a scene from the old sixties science fiction movie Day of the Triffids – the mammoth cucumber plants look set for world domination.  They already have John under their influence - he waters them twice a day!