We’ve had quite a day here on the farm. Actually it all kinda started yesterday when our phone went out. We couldn’t receive calls, make calls out, had no internet…and we basically started going stir-crazy. Of course we didn’t have a cell phone either because Stefan usually has one via his company and we barely use one ourselves. So we had to walk down the block to a pay phone which costs about 1 cent per second – and you virtually have to feed the phone every few seconds or you’ll lose the call. Just great.
Anyway, we managed to get hold of Deutsche Telekom and they told us they’d send someone out Friday or Saturday. We weren’t hopeful but figured we’d be here anyway because Macky was supposed to come out this morning at 8:30 am and start installing the plumbing for the bathroom. He was also supposed to bring his electrician so all the cables we’ve laid could be connected. All that needs to be finished before we can move forward with the rest of the guest house and we’ve already been set back about 3 weeks because of him just not showing up. Unfortunately for him, this was his last chance to get the ball rolling and 8:30 came and went with absolutely no sign of him. We’ve been trying to call him all day and his phone either just rings or it tells us he’s out of the area and/or has his phone turned off. Needless to say we’re not amused at all by all this and he better not show up here or try to contact us again because he’s going to get any earful from Stefan…
We also just talked to someone we recommended Macky to and he’s done an overhaul on their entire house in the past few months. Apparently the story Macky fed us about his sister being trampled by a horse and in a coma was a complete lie. When he was supposed to be at our house working, he was at theirs making up for lost time. We understand that their project has a strict deadline or they’ll have to be living in their yard when their furniture arrives in two weeks…and we absolutely don’t want that. But if Macky had just called and said he didn’t have the time, we completely would have understood and could have made other arrangements. Instead, he’s just continued to string us along with lies for explanations which is just totally unacceptable.
Since we had no clue when we might end up with the phone back on, we decided to go pick up a cheap cell phone which we can at least use for emergencies. Being completely without a phone is just not an option…and when we got home, the Telekom guy was standing at our door! At least one positive moment for our day.
He told us that the wiring in our basement seems to have gotten moist with all the dampness that has been in the air lately and because the housing for it is about 20 years old or so, it just couldn’t handle that. Unfortunately the repair guy didn’t have new equipment with him and someone will have to be sent out (which could take to up a month) but he was able to hot-wire it for us and at least we have phone & DSL back!
On the track of more decent news, we bought a water heater yesterday and the furniture for our bathroom from IKEA. We also found all the pieces we’ll need for our bedroom which will prevent us from building everything ourselves (which would cost us more time & probably more money than just buying it). We’ve also ordered some really nice shower heads which should be here in about two weeks. And our door has also apparently arrived at Hornbach although we’re now going to try to pick ourselves despite that being a bit of a pain.
So tomorrow Kovey, our new favorite contractor, will be here at 8:30 am with another helper to build the new brick wall by the wine cellar which will form the walk-in closet (and hopefully house our water heater) and finish up some more of the drywall…and he will try to help us determine what we need to do with the plumbing as well. From our guide books, it appears that we should be able to do most of the work ourselves in the bathroom and at least we now have gone with standard shower connections instead of the ultra complicated ones we would have needed with the Kohler shower tiles.
Slowly but surely we’re recovering from this set-back but we are actually thinking we should attempt the plumbing stuff ourselves since the books say it’s “easy”…I guess we’ll make a trip to the store to buy the materials first and just see how things go.
