All Change

Its in with the new and out with the old here as I reschedule the renovation process. The contract with the building firm has been brought to a halt at the halfway stage with just some plumbing and electricity and some plastering to finish off as well as a glass brick floor. After that I will be overseeing the finishing process myself with local artisans with a proven track record. Ben rushed out this morning to get hired scaffolding for the plasterer who will be working on the octagonal sylight to repair the detailed but damaged plasterwork. At the same time the workers are removing all the plaster and plastic covering the zellige floors so I am now seeing my beautiful floors for the first time in 14 weeks.

The kitchen units brickbuilt are being rendered ready for marble tops and zellige and finally the fireplace chimney has been demolished and carted away; it was a radically wrong build as the builder admitted he had never built one before. Well they could have told me that before they started but of course it was the oh well we will have a go approach. Now i will employ a fireplace expert to do a proper job.

The influx of people in the Medina continues to astound with today involved in seeing houses in the area with Dominic; meeting Andy newly arrived from Essaouria with ready riad cash; Jenny from England still on a furtive house hunt; bumping into Helen Ranger of Fez Riads talking about the Sacred Music Festival; meeting Mike and Amanda from East Anglia on a quick scouting mission of Fes; Michael from London setting up a restaurant in the Medina and then Andrew from up north still getting his guest house together after needing to replace his roof halfway through laying the zellige oh dear. Just realised that has been the longest sentence on record maybe I am going through my Kerouac phase without the copious amounts of benzedrine and jazz cigarettes.

its just a small taster of the frenetic air here at the moment and the whole place is buzzing with entrepreneurs entrepreneuring all over the place. Could be a messy business but the ideas floating around all make sense to me and the people seem to have the gumption and spirit as well as the savvy and financial backing to make their individual dream come true. Its similar to a frontier town Wild West atmosphere where you grab your chance with both hands and run with it Yeehay!!

Looks like with so many hard working ex pats in the area at this moment I should organise a little terrace party to welcome old and new friends to our neck of the woods in the medina. I will round them up, as Rowdy Yates would say for all those very old Rawhide fans, and we can talk about decappage, zellige and other obscure renovation terms till our heads fall off. I am sure we can compare notes, swap tradesman and generally work together to ensure each of our projects proceeds as smoothly ha ha as possible. Maybe a renovation site where members could offer advice and tips online would be an idea, how about it Sandy, as a technophobe myself to some extent I could not set it up properly!!