Onward And Upward

Onward And Upward

The guys had started working on the railings yesterday morning before I finished blogging and continued for most of the day. There was some discussion about whether to even put the part up, that is shown on the left hand side of this photo (the unpainted part). Ciro asked us whether we wanted it and we told him it was up to him, it didn't matter to us. He finally decided to put it there in case we wanted a gate sometime.

They then left an opening part way down the stairs (on the right hand of the photo below), so that they can access their roof without coming up onto our patio.

Apparently the plan is to sometime have a privacy wall of some sort (ironwork) going from the unpainted corner on the right hand side of the photo below to the other end of our patio and then a sun roof over part of it. It is hard to say when that will happen, as it is so hard to find workers right now, everyone is so busy working in Miramar and San Carlos.

Ciro started painting the railing while the guys were working on the other parts of it. I think he is trying to do it before it starts to rust, which happens quickly here in the salt air. Fine with us.
I went to the laundromat and washed the clothes, and picked up a few things at the store that we need for our trip. Roy then hung the laundry to dry while I did some cleaning in the house. Other than that we just spend the day relaxing and watching the work going on. I made shrimp tacos for supper. I am trying to use up the meat that I have in the freezer before we leave just in case the fridge goes off while we are gone. We are down to bacon and shrimp now, so tonight we are having cheese stuffed shrimp wrapped in bacon. Now doesn't that sound like a cholesterol nightmare!! Should be good with some rice and tomatoes on the side. I think I will go and pay the cable/internet bill today and not have to worry about rushing to do it when we get back. It has to be paid by the 13th of the month. I also need to pull all the plants into the shady area of the patio so that they won't dry out too much while we are gone, I will water them well and hopefully they will be fine until we get back.
Tomorrow we will pack and leave on the bus around 9PM, supposedly getting into San Luis Rio Colorado at around 8AM the next morning. I say supposedly, because going north you never know how long a trip will take, it depends on how many checkstops they have that particular day, on that particular stretch of road, could be 1, could be 5, or more. You just never know.

Deck And Stair Railing

Deck And Stair Railing

We have been waiting for a few months for our landlords brother/s to have some free time to make some railing for our deck/patio and stairs. Yesterday morning Ciro came up and asked us to move the car as his brother was coming with the railing. They arrived and started working on installing it. It wasn't quite what I was expecting; but it will certainly be safer than it was before. They put some of it in place and then took more measurements and returned to their shop to cut some more pipe. I went to spanish class and when I returned they also had returned and were working at it. They packed up and left around 6 PM, the work isn't finished so I am hoping that they return today to finish; but who knows. I didn't ask Ciro about it, as I know that they will finish it whenever they have time, whether it is today or not. Irene came out to look at it and pronounced it "feo", which if I understood her correctly is "ugly". It is not the pretty ironwork that you see all over, it is simply round pipe that will do the job. She had concrete balustrades in her mind last winter though, so I guess it is not what she wanted. Personally I am just glad to have something there that will make it less scary when the children come up to visit. Ciro was up here and Irene was downstairs, so he commented that it was like Romeo and Juliet; although reversed and I suggested to Irene that she could serenade Ciro. We all laughed when the men were working around where the hummingbird feeder is hanging and the birds were constantly buzzing around their heads. An unusual job hazard.

As I was writing this the men returned and began work, so perhaps they will finish today. We discussed with Ciro yesterday what color we were going to paint the railing. He thought that we should paint it blue to match the colors that I have used on the decorations and cushions on the patio. At the time we thought that was a good idea; but as we thought about it later we kind of changed our minds. The railing goes down the stairs to the ground and as the trim on Ciros house is red, we are thinking that the blue railing might look odd with the red, so we will probably just stick to white that matches the main house color. Whatever, we won't be doing it until we come back from Yuma anyway and then there is Carnaval, so it might have to wait for a couple of weeks to get painted.

My photo uploader was doing weird things last night and I lost a couple of photos that I had taken of the men working. If they come back to work today, I will try and take a few more.

Putting the landing railings in place.

Taking measurements.