Monday, August 29, 2011
So great news yesterday, we are meant to have an inspection of site after the foundation is done with the DPC (damp proof coarse) just before we lay down the concrete slab. We wanted to do the inspection in stages so we could start putting the concrete slab down so we could start putting up walls, while the foundation on the east side is still being finished. It took forever to finally get the inspector to site then he took a look at the foundations not even finished and the inspector said "keep going I don't need to see anything until the next stage" which is wait for it...the top of windows where typically the lintel goes or in our case the ring beam. The inspector is meant to take a pickaxe and hit the foundation in to make sure it is solid; our inspector did not do this. He was just so impressed with our foundations he just let us move on. That’s the good news, the bad news is wait for it… you guessed it my car. I spent almost 3 weeks in Harare waiting for my car to be fixed but I was able to make a 24 hour trip home with friends, which gave me enough time to check on site, meet a few people, love my dogs, change my suitcase, sort the house and my domestic and get in the car back to Harare. The car needed a service but the fuel pump was shot and even after they changed the fuel pump there was still a problem, which after changing all sorts of things turned out to be the HT leads the connect from the fuel pump regulator to the spark plugs, which control and inject fuel and car goes. I got the car back and was driving it along a fairly busy Harare street and fuel sprayed all over the road from the front of my car. I pulled over and turns out the hose connected to the engine from the fuel came off after it had been replaced. The hose clip was faulty and even after putting it back on every time I turned the car on the hose came off and fuel sprayed. So I had to have the car towed to a friend’s house 5 blocks away and I got a new hose and clip and fixed the car. So the project is progressing and over the next few days I’ll be able to see how fast the walls will go up. There was another issue to deal with. Our property slopes down from the existing building to the new building, this works in our favour as we can use gravity for the sewer and water. So at the lowest point is where the septic tank and soaker way are. There are minimum dimensions to the septic tank and soaker way, the contractor who is also our plumber asked if he could make them deeper and narrower for ease, which as long as they meet the requirements then it’s fine. However because he made them deeper in an already sloping site it caused a few issues when he started building them. The rear veranda now has to be lower requiring 3 steps, a retaining wall and a foundation of it’s own. As well where the piping starts in the existing building that veranda also has to have it’s own retaining wall and foundations. So a little redesigning on my part but problem solved. And that’s my life this month. I am now back and home and back to normal…well almost give me a few more days and the routine will be back and the dogs will stop following me around like I’m going to leave them at any moment, which makes me feel like a bad parent but they’re starting to relax and let me shower in peace!
Friday, August 19, 2011
Huck has been sick he developed tick fever. It took me a few days to notice as he doesn’t eat much to begin with, he started eating even less until he stopped eating, he became really lethargic and just wanted to sleep all day and he was more than his usually cuddly. I thought it was strep throat, which is common among dogs out here, so I was checking his throat and noticed over a few days that his gums were getting white and his eyes were getting whiter, he was going pale, anemic. As I was going to Harare anyways I thought I would take him with me but he started to fail fast so I took him to the Nyanga vet, who was drunk at the time it gave him the shots and the next morning he was returning to normal. I still took him to Nyanga with me to keep an eye on him and good thing I did because he was injected wrong and development a lump at his injection site that filled with fluid that had to be drained.
Harare was good, the AIDS clinic that I go to once a month was great, unfortunately one of the granny’s died in a public transport accident, which unfortunately is a weekly occurrence. I love going to the clinic because these granny’s are in their 70’s and 80’s and starting over as parents with 7 or 8 grandchildren. One granny has 17 relatives living in her home!!! Lots of the families rent out rooms in their homes to make money, so they sleep in the living room or kitchen and rent out the bedrooms. Some of the grandpa’s work as security guards, which seems a bit odd as an 80 year old man fending off robbers doesn’t seem like such a good idea. They do what they need to survive.
My car is back at the doctor, I was driving and all of a sudden the engine would rev and then the speedometer would go down to zero and the car would stop. I would just turn the key off and then wait a few seconds and then turn the engine back on and it was fine. It was due for a service so I took it in and found that the fuel pump was gone, so they put in a new one and then found that the fuel pump regulator was broken. Right for the non-car people the fuel pump regulator, regulates the amount of fuel that goes into the fuel pump which when you push the gas fills with fuel and makes the car go, so the harder I pushed the gas the less fuel that went in and the car died. Fuel pump was easy to replace, the regulator not so much so it’s been a long time and I’m stuck in Harare BUT I got to make a quick trip home to check on the project, the house, take Huck home and see Molly.
Harare was good, the AIDS clinic that I go to once a month was great, unfortunately one of the granny’s died in a public transport accident, which unfortunately is a weekly occurrence. I love going to the clinic because these granny’s are in their 70’s and 80’s and starting over as parents with 7 or 8 grandchildren. One granny has 17 relatives living in her home!!! Lots of the families rent out rooms in their homes to make money, so they sleep in the living room or kitchen and rent out the bedrooms. Some of the grandpa’s work as security guards, which seems a bit odd as an 80 year old man fending off robbers doesn’t seem like such a good idea. They do what they need to survive.
My car is back at the doctor, I was driving and all of a sudden the engine would rev and then the speedometer would go down to zero and the car would stop. I would just turn the key off and then wait a few seconds and then turn the engine back on and it was fine. It was due for a service so I took it in and found that the fuel pump was gone, so they put in a new one and then found that the fuel pump regulator was broken. Right for the non-car people the fuel pump regulator, regulates the amount of fuel that goes into the fuel pump which when you push the gas fills with fuel and makes the car go, so the harder I pushed the gas the less fuel that went in and the car died. Fuel pump was easy to replace, the regulator not so much so it’s been a long time and I’m stuck in Harare BUT I got to make a quick trip home to check on the project, the house, take Huck home and see Molly.
The foundations are done, just waiting for inspection, which I hope to do Monday so that the concrete slab can be poured, more on that very soon...
Huck has been sick he developed tick fever. It took me a few days to notice as he doesn’t eat much to begin with, he started eating even less until he stopped eating, he became really lethargic and just wanted to sleep all day and he was more than his usually cuddly. I thought it was strep throat, which is common among dogs out here, so I was checking his throat and noticed over a few days that his gums were getting white and his eyes were getting whiter, he was going pale, anemic. As I was going to Harare anyways I thought I would take him with me but he started to fail fast so I took him to the Nyanga vet, who was drunk at the time it gave him the shots and the next morning he was returning to normal. I still took him to Nyanga with me to keep an eye on him and good thing I did because he was injected wrong and development a lump at his injection site that filled with fluid that had to be drained.
Harare was good, the AIDS clinic that I go to once a month was great, unfortunately one of the granny’s died in a public transport accident, which unfortunately is a weekly occurrence. I love going to the clinic because these granny’s are in their 70’s and 80’s and starting over as parents with 7 or 8 grandchildren. One granny has 17 relatives living in her home!!! Lots of the families rent out rooms in their homes to make money, so they sleep in the living room or kitchen and rent out the bedrooms. Some of the grandpa’s work as security guards, which seems a bit odd as an 80 year old man fending off robbers doesn’t seem like such a good idea. They do what they need to survive.
My car is back at the doctor, I was driving and all of a sudden the engine would rev and then the speedometer would go down to zero and the car would stop. I would just turn the key off and then wait a few seconds and then turn the engine back on and it was fine. It was due for a service so I took it in and found that the fuel pump was gone, so they put in a new one and then found that the fuel pump regulator was broken. Right for the non-car people the fuel pump regulator, regulates the amount of fuel that goes into the fuel pump which when you push the gas fills with fuel and makes the car go, so the harder I pushed the gas the less fuel that went in and the car died. Fuel pump was easy to replace, the regulator not so much so it’s been a long time and I’m stuck in Harare BUT I got to make a quick trip home to check on the project, the house, take Huck home and see Molly.
Harare was good, the AIDS clinic that I go to once a month was great, unfortunately one of the granny’s died in a public transport accident, which unfortunately is a weekly occurrence. I love going to the clinic because these granny’s are in their 70’s and 80’s and starting over as parents with 7 or 8 grandchildren. One granny has 17 relatives living in her home!!! Lots of the families rent out rooms in their homes to make money, so they sleep in the living room or kitchen and rent out the bedrooms. Some of the grandpa’s work as security guards, which seems a bit odd as an 80 year old man fending off robbers doesn’t seem like such a good idea. They do what they need to survive.
My car is back at the doctor, I was driving and all of a sudden the engine would rev and then the speedometer would go down to zero and the car would stop. I would just turn the key off and then wait a few seconds and then turn the engine back on and it was fine. It was due for a service so I took it in and found that the fuel pump was gone, so they put in a new one and then found that the fuel pump regulator was broken. Right for the non-car people the fuel pump regulator, regulates the amount of fuel that goes into the fuel pump which when you push the gas fills with fuel and makes the car go, so the harder I pushed the gas the less fuel that went in and the car died. Fuel pump was easy to replace, the regulator not so much so it’s been a long time and I’m stuck in Harare BUT I got to make a quick trip home to check on the project, the house, take Huck home and see Molly.
The foundations are done, just waiting for inspection, which I hope to do Monday so that the concrete slab can be poured, more on that very soon...
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