Twin Town

One of the reasons our recent stay in Fez was less than relaxing at times (apart from running around buying taps, bidets and acres of fabric) was our 1 year old twin girls, Lola and Rosa.

After two visits of the family en mass, we have discovered that there there are two more sets of twins living locally and another belonging to our friend Koko (or Driss).

Mustapha and Said are the two guys who have a leather workshop next to our house where they make hand made shoes. They have been a great help when we've been there keeping an eye on our son Frankie during his many football sessions in the street, as well as paying our water and electricity bills while we're away.

Further up the street are two young girls around 3 years old who's names I can't remember, but who frequently visited the house with the other dozen or so kids from the area.

Koko's twin daughters, Zeenab and Kenza helped out with us at the house and couldn't get enough of Lola and Rosa along with their younger sister Habla. The image above is an excellent shot taken by Jo of the 4 of them on the doorstep along with the neighbour's cat which got in a few scrapes while we were there. Click on the image to view bigger.

Shaping Up At Last

Now back in England watching the rain lash the children trying to play football and put off all thoughts of the impending return to school next week, it's hard to imagine the sweat running down my back as I trundled up and down the stairs getting all the personal belongings back in the store room before our departure.

I have a souvenir or that store room on the top of my head. The doorway is about 1.4m high. At least twice each visit I manage to bang my head. The last time was a cracker and I still have the dull throb to remind me.

The Dar is now looking good with most of the work finished, except parts of the kitchen and some steps up to the small top terrace. But these will be underway shortly.

The crucial work now is cleaning all the paint and plaster from the zellij and wood prior to final oiling. I did some cleaning myself while I was there ( in the rare moments when all 3 children were asleep) to get an idea of what the finished place would look like and to give our guardian, who will be undertaking this work as part of his guardian duties, an idea of what is required.

These images give an idea of how things are progressing.

The Brown Salon with recently exposed zellij ready for cleaning


The Red Salon with essential iPod dock


The view from the Red Salon


The door to the terrace


The entrance hall from the Brown Salon

So farewell then, Cat in Rabat

The Cat in Rabat is putting the mouse down (temporarily we hope) after a highly amusing and well observed series of "snarky musings". We've enjoyed many postings from the anonymouse [sic] blogstress, some that might considered close to the bone by the Moroccan authorities, were they to be snooping.

Truly entertaining. Let hope the snarking continues in Madrid.

Slow, but steady progress

The old blog has been a bit stale of late I know. Partly due to that hectic home life and work schedule, partly because things are moving slowly in the house at present.

The first part of a house renovation sees major changes going on quite rapidly, usually alarmingly so with all hell seeming to get let loose in your lovely new purchase. Flying plaster, smashed tiles and general debris dropping from precariously perched workers on the flimsiest of scaffolding systems.

When the job gets to the stages where finishing gets underway, it seems to go on for ever. This is the part of the job where it would be good to be around to keep an eye on all the work daily, but the nature of our life in the UK doesn't allow for that.

So, rather than get too anxious about the finer details, we have had to leave a lot of the decisions to our man there. This will no doubt throw up a lot of weird and wonderful solutions to various problems that we personally wouldn't have sanctioned had we been present. But hey!, if we really don't like it, we can change it.

So far though most things have been fine, at the end of the day we are not restoring the place back to what was there many centuries ago, as the house is only about 100 years old, and part of it seems to be newer than that.

What we are trying to achieve is a place that feels like you belong there as you walk in. It's somewhere built to the traditional style footprint, easily accessible from the Blue Gate (Bab Boujloud) and in a quiet location. On our last visit when the house was far from finished, that was certainly the case, and friends that stayed had that impression too.

On this next visit we're hoping to inch the completion a bit closer, and won't have to pack all the furniture away when leave again.

These images don't show much of interest to the non-dar renovator. The one above shows some old zellij which had been covered in a concrete slab previously.

This is the colour we're having a small salon painted, all blue with blue furniture. The way I'm imagining it in my head seems fine. The reality may be different.

This plaster arch had to be done again as last time it had been rushed before our visit and just wasn't symmetrical.

Hopefully when we return to the UK we'll be able to start pointing friends and family in the direction on Dar Mystere.