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The 'Castle'
Ron Mackey
June 21, 2006, 11:27 p.m. (Message 45625)
> Interesting pattern, does not fit the one in my memory, will check when > I get the house organized enough to be able to find it. (Prognosis is > that the house will be complete, well sort of, in two weeks, or > Christmas. Officially the pool is almost tiled, some doors need > glazing, the panels in the drawing room need replacing and the > electricity reconnected in that room, 3 more doors hung, some painting > and my escutcheon with house number inset in the keystone above the > front door.) > > This sounds like a perfect example of 'manyana' (excuse phonetics)? :))
There is a Scottish joke that comes to mind, I remember it being told by the late Bill Ireland in one of those late night sessions at University hall, where the perspiration of the beer cans matched that on the walls. It seems that a Hebridean and a Mexican were comparing their respective vocabularies, one would give his word, and then the other his and they would have a linguistic discussion. Finally the Mexican said "mañana" (BTW your spelling would be fine in Catalunya where we have no "Ñ", except that our word is "matí".). The Hebridean, repeated the word several times and then asked what it means. The Mexican said well it means tomorrow, in the morning, later, soon, in a few days, later, whenever. The Hebridean answere, "no we do not have any words as urgent as that." While the building process can be a bit frustrating, but the style is quite different here in that I have a "mestre d´obres" who drops by every day and organizes, but my actuall workers vary from zero to 8 depending on what is being done, the usual is 0 to 2. This is because their company is actually building 20 houses at the same time, and weather is a factor (inside for hot, cold, or rain, outside other weather. Actually the work week is 5.5 days starting at 06:00 and ending at 19:00, siesta in the middle. The job would move much faster if I was building a new house, but as mine is a listed building (UK term) the standards are much higher, and more things must be done in stone which is cut to fit on site (which explains 5 years of dust in my hair, food, bed, bath). A related problem is that the Mallorquí never heard of Euclid, so there are no right angles in the house. So, after putting in new plumbing, I had to make a decision about the floor tiles. If I aligned them with an almost straight wall, this means that the other 3 walls would have tiles shaped like triangles, If I aligned the tiles with the front door, they would not match any of the walls in any room. Ultimately, as my house has 6 cross walls, each with a door except for the last, I aligned the first tile with the 3rd doorway, and then created a straight line from there to the front door, and extended it to the back of the house and worked out from there. OK so I still have triangles, but they will end up behind furniture, at least one looking in the front door will not get a headache trying to follow the lines. To give an example of how bad it is, I wanted a large shelf headboad for the bed in the master bedroom, so measured the wall from one side of the room to the window, this would allow a night stand at one end then the bed, then the window (which in a meter thick wall has two shelves below it anyway. When the bed was installed, everything fit perfectly, except where I expected the space on the night stand side to be the width of the night stand, at the foot of the bed, it is only 8 inches. - makes it a bit hard to make hospital corners.
Ron wrote: > So, Richard, it seems you will have a house of character? !! Eventually. :) Interesting as this topic is for some people no doubt, if the conversation is going to continue could it perhaps be done off the list, or else put "off topic" in the Subject line? Many thanks, Jan Beaconsfield, UK
How many sets, probably 4 not counting the street. As drawing room (2), connects to dining room (1) through an arch, which is closed with 4 panels, all but one fixed closed in winter, two left open in supper, and two more that can be opened to conbine the two rooms. The roof terrace can easily hold one, which works because it has windows from the cupula, having speakers on each level. Besides, the smaller of its two balconies, can hold a small band, already having a piano, organ, and drum set in place. However we have had dances in the street, 24 hour police notice required, permit easy to get. The street is two sets wide, and about 20 sets long between the cross streets. We usually put the band on a balcony across the street, if there is a crowd, if not, and strictly a neighborhood affair this space is limited by the band, tables, and a 4m diameter paella pan over an open fire..