We beavered away painting the bedrooms and ordered furniture. The painting, entirely within our control, was completed on time; the tiling and the bedroom furniture were not!

The tiles were eventually delivered, after a six week delay, and were due to be fitted the day Bern, Al and Al arrived. The furniture was delivered a week earlier but, in their enthusiasm, the delivery lads managed to damage the wardrobe as they were building it in the bedroom, ‘ah senor, un problema, pero no problema’ we can fix it next week. But, our friends are arriving on Monday, they need somewhere to sleep! So they put the bed up and left the makings of the wardrobe and chest of drawers piled up in the corner of the bedroom.

In the meantime, Jim, Mick’s son, was due in mid May to collect our Citroën and take it back to England, so we needed to buy a car. A left-hand drive car. The lack of success in selling our house in Tisbury has limited our options a bit, so we settled on a ford focus.

Its taken three weeks to get the paper work sorted out, transferring ownership, insurance, tax but we think we’re there now!

Monday arrived, Filipe is sick, no tiling! A phone call to the bedroom furniture company and they can’t fix the wardrobe till next week!