Works on the foundations this past summer - Part 1

Our house is built on clay, and after a very dry summer in 2022 a large crack appeared on the garage facade. There are other cracks on the facade that have been repaired by previous owners and a few smaller fresh ones appeared too. Also, our bedroom on that side of the house has cracks which widened every summer and closed up in winter when the ground was wet. Long story short our insurance covered the repairs which are due to clay soil drying out during the drought, causing the foundations to move. It's not unusual and is only likely to get worse with climate change to houses built on clay soil.

1. The foundations are injected with resin.

The first lot of work involved drilling into the foundations through the inside of the basement, next to the retaining walls. Then resin is injected in to strengthen the foundations.

Before this happened, we had to empty the garage, workroom and downstairs bedroom, at our expense. So a local removal company came and packed up and took everything away to store for us.

Above and below - the holes being drilled were up to about 5 foot long, the length of the copper rods. You can see the size of the drill bits below!

The covered over area outside the bedroom and workroom. The hose is for the resin injecting. The guys had their own generator as the resin is injected under high pressure into the copper rods, each of which is cut to a different depth, so that there are different depths of resin. You can see the metal rods sticking out of the holes and excess resin around them which was trimmed off afterwards, plus the rods are removed at ground level.

There then followed a gap in time as there was a mix up over the date for the tilers to commence - all the fault of one lot not talking to the next lot in the order of works to be done (all three businesses involved in the different stages were all under the same parent company). The first lot of guys left everything really clean, including the already filthy garage tiles - which were about to be removed, so they really didn't need to wash them - but I was really impressed!

2. The tilers commence
All these rooms had to be retiled as the drilling had to happen indoors, through the existing flooring. When I was first told what would happen I freaked thinking about what state my guest room floor would be in afterwards!! Then I breathed a big sigh of relief when they said they would retile the floors!

Tiles removed from the spare bedroom above (only to find some old tiles beneath) and garage below.

Self-levelling cement was laid in all rooms before tiling could start.

Looking through to our workroom from the garage.

Our tiles arrive! And that is a serious bit of kit, having a crane on the back of the truck. So handy.

Eeks!

It's an ever expanding crane! The good thing is that we got several brand new pallets to keep, whose wood will come in handy. (I'm planning a few little veggie beds for next year.... watch this space 😀).

Garage tiles are a mottled brown/grey colour - far more sensible for a garage floor which will get dirty with a car coming inside.

Outside the spare bedroom - the tiles are a beigey/grey mottled colour.

The guys did such a good job, love how they have done this step here.

We paid extra to have the tiles laid on the diagonal in the bedroom, as the old tiles were staying in the bathroom and were a slightly different size. This way where they meet it looks neat.

Not the bathroom! The entrance to the bedroom from the basement hallway.

I asked for tiled skirting too, as it's much nicer than the boring cheap white wooden skirting that was already there. (I'm going to repaint after Christmas - I hadn't realised how grubby the walls were without furniture in the room, and I did wash off any dirt from the foundation works).

3. Outdoor work commences

Onto stage three. First of all the rootballs of all those shrubs had to come out.

The big one was the bay tree. (It's sitting in front of a Tamarisk tree).

The grass got a bit scuffed up (it got worse!).

To be continued... 😀

Spain trip May 2025 - Part 4 Doñana National Park

Whilst the Doñana National Park covers a huge area, you can only access a few sites on the periphery. The only way into the park itself is to book onto a 4-wheel drive tour which is not ideal for birders, as it is a tour giving a general overview of the wetland. They do search for Lynx and the Spanish Imperial Eagles during the tours, but the likelihood of seeing either is quite remote. So given the price of these tours and the general lack of water (even if there was lots more water deeper into the park) we decided to give the tour a miss.

So, we revisited some of the sites that we went to in October 23 which were all dry at that time. The first site had water in the lagoon though!

White Storks (Ciconia ciconia) nesting on an electricity pylon!

The view from one of the hides.

Zooming in on the island you can see a White Stork on the left, some Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus) in the centre and the ducks on the right are Common Pochards (Aythya ferina). Click on the photo to see larger and more clearly.

But that was it as far as birds were concerned, so a bit disappointing. We then followed the board walk to the scrubland area.

Whilst the vegetation looks quite dry here there were still some wildflowers here and there. Below the purple/pink flower is Lusitanian bellflower (Campanula lusitanica) though I'm not sure what the white daisy like flower is.

This is European Umbrella Milkwort (Tolpis barbata).

There's a translation in English if you open up the photo. It describes the scrubland area and the plants which grow there.

There were still some shrubs and flowers in bloom - this is a yellow Rockrose (Cistus halimifolius).

This shows what the soil looks like - more sand than anything else. Still, there were little bursts of colour here and there - the blue plant I think is Jasione montana (which doesn't only grow in mountains!) and what looks like tiny Pinks of some sort. In the foreground is a French Lavender (Lavandula stoechas) which had just about finished flowering.

We then went on to another site but this one was completely dry, so we didn't spend a lot of time there as looking out of a hide at an area that had once been a lagoon is a bit boring!

On top of this building at the entrance to the site was a White Stork nest.

There were four youngsters in the nest - must have been getting a bit crowded as they were getting quite big and stretching their wings! These two are Keith's photos taken with his long lens.

Mum was having a bad hair day!

More wildflowers - top left: Spanish Iris (Iris xiphium), top right: Flax-leaved Blue Pimpernel (Lysimachia monelli) Bottom: Rough-Flowered Catchfly (Silene scabriflora).

Despite there being a bit of water in some of the lagoons it was really disappointing again - given how hyped up the Doñana wetland has been over the years to find it so dried up now is such a terrible shame. I don't think we will be back.

Spain trip May 2025 - Part 3 Caceres, Extremadura and El Rocio, Andalucia

When we were in Extremadura a few years ago we visited the neighbouring town of Trujillo, famous for its history of conquistadors who brought back riches from the New World. The larger town of Caceres also became wealthy for the same reason and the many buildings and mansions built on that wealth still stand, with nothing having changed to the exteriors. It also has a lot more history than that of course, going back to the Romans who founded it, then Visigoths, Arabs and later, Christians.

It's quite a stunning town with amazing architecture wherever you walk.  The town is full of towers, castles, mansions, palaces, churches... We only wandered around the old town for an hour or so and I have collaged my photos in order to take up less room, but you can click on the images and see the individual photos much larger. 

I am going to skip looking up the names of each building to save me a lot of time! If you are interested, this website has some interesting information. Also, the town appeared in Game of Thrones like nearby Los Barruecos did (which I wrote about here)

El Rocio, Andalucia

El Rocio is one of the closest towns to the Donana wetland area which is well known as the largest and probably most important wetland area in southern Spain, although that is arguable now that it has dried out so much in recent years due to natural drought and strawberry farmers illegally pumping the groundwater. However, even if you have no interest in birds or wetlands, El Rocio is a special place that is well worth a visit!

We were very happy to see water in the shallow lagoon at El Rocio as it had been bone dry in Oct 2023.

This church, Santuario Nuestra Señora del Rocío, dominates the main square of the town and is stunning against the backdrop of a deep blue sky. What's different about El Rocio is that it is a 'wild west' town, with sand in place of tarmac and you will often see horses about. In a way it is similar to Saintes Maries de la Mer in the Camargue, also a wetland area with 'cowboys' sometimes seen on horseback in the town.

There are some tourist shops, mostly selling religious tat, and a few cafes and restaurants, but that's about it really. It was much busier than when we were there in October, with mules and carts waiting to take tourists for rides, plus pony rides for the kids.

A festival called Saca de las Yeguas takes place every year, where the wild mares and foals are rounded up from the marshlands and brought to El Rocio for a blessing before being taken to the nearby town of Almonte, for a horse fair where they will be checked over by vets, have their manes and tails trimmed, be microchipped and some will be auctioned off. It sounds very similar to what happens to the wild ponies in the New Forest in southern England.

Our Lady of El Rocio inside the church which is the site of an annual pilgrimage known as the Romería de El Rocío, where people come from far and wide to pay homage to the Madonna and have a fiesta with lots of flamenco music and dancing.

A Jacaranda tree (Jacaranda mimosifolia) - gorgeous blue blooms!

The following are photos I took in Oct 2023 as we walked down more attractive side streets that time. (I never got as far as sharing my photos from Andalucia in 23).

The sad dry lagoon in October 2023.

Just adding this Wall Lizard that I saw back then - I think it is the Andalucian Wall Lizard (Podarcis vaucheri).

El Rocio is well worth a visit, but it's hard work at times walking around in the sand and it's best not to wear sandals unless you don't care about getting sandy feet!

We stayed at La Aldea campsite just outside of the village, which was within walking distance, giving K a day off from driving and we need days occasionally where we have a free morning or afternoon to get our laundry done.