The siesta deck

This Sunday marks 2 months of living in Spain! Not to be cliche but it does simultaneously feel like the longest yet shortest 8 weeks we’ve ever had.

Sometimes it can feel like we’re getting nowhere, we look over the road from the caravan and see a massive project looming over us. But as I reflect on what we’ve achieved over the past couple of months I can recognise that we might just be doing alright!

Taking it back to our first project - Gooses siesta deck. Shortly after arriving - mid heatwave, we realised we were definitely in need of a decking/patio area outside of the caravan, somewhere cool for goose to snooze whilst we were building and somewhere to set up a table and chairs for ourselves. Having plonked ourselves in the middle of a field that hadn’t been taken care of for 16 years, we needed a little extra outdoor space that wasn’t quite so at one with nature.. also If I got stung by one more nettle getting into the caravan.. I was calling the whole thing off!

Brett quickly got to drawing up the plans and noting the measurements and we headed out to Gijon to source some wood, our first stop was a big wood yard, where we sadly realised the rumours were true, wood was really expensive… €675 was our first quote, which just so happened to be about €600 out of our budget. The next stop was a reclamation yard in what might have been the hottest place on earth, the car was reading a steady 46 degrees…ouch. But the gruelling heat was worth it, as Brett sourced not only all the wood we needed, but also a shower basin and a couple of tools for just €75, think we can call that a result.

We got to work immediately, I took on the role of prepping each plank of wood - de nailing (the official term) sanding, priming and listening to lots of podcasts, whilst Brett got to work setting out the frame… 2 days of prepping done and we started to assemble. Wow did we underestimate the length of time this was going to take us! A good lesson for two people blessed with chronic impatience. We started at about 10 o clock in the morning and finished at around 10.30 pm… with no power we were doing it like they did in the good ole days, using a hand saw to cut down each piece to size, I think we caused so much stress to our neighbours with how long we were taking, that they couldn’t bear to see us take any longer and very kindly offered us use of their power, (side note - we have the best neighbours in the world - more on that later!)

!!12 hours!! later and we had ourselves a pretty smart deck, we ran to the showers before the campsite closed at 11pm and treated ourselves to takeaway pizzas from Villaviciosa, feeling super content with what we had achieved. The next day we set up our table and chairs and plopped gooses bed in the corner, ready for him to settle and snooze, to which he decided - “nah I think I’m gunna sleep under the caravan instead, thanks anyway…” Theres just no pleasing some people....