...but it would be nice if pulling on it could help...

On the 30th of April, Andrea and Elmar sat in their cars after work, completely packed with all the necessities that one would need until the final move, and they headed south. And on the 2nd of May, I waited impatiently for the first pictures and reports from our site.

The result was - even when you polish it up a bit - quite sobering....

Ok, I'm no architect, but we all had a different idea of what ‘structural work completed’ meant. The reason of the delay was our concrete roof, which takes 28 days to dry after it has been set. And we hat no idea whether the 2nd of May was at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of this drying period. But at least we got a new timeline: the house will be ready to move into in three months.

The fact that it rained heavily the days before and the next two days did not really make things easier.

Nevertheless, the level of happiness remained high in Sterbeg. Apart from the fact that it would have been pointless to complain about anything anyway, the feeling of joy arose despite the future life on the construction site. Just being there, having left (almost) everything of the old life behind - it didn't seem too difficult to arrange with the situation as it was for some more months. Furthermore, thanks to occasional rainfall, Albania is green and fertile even in midsummer, unlike most other Mediterranean countries, where the landscape gets dry and barren in the hot season.

Fortunately, the topography of the site had brought us an unexpected gift.

Originally, the house was supposed to be built at ground level at the back, with a slightly raised terrace, but suddenly there was space more than two high under the terrace, which we can use for whatever we want (guest room, sauna, storage room, etc.). And for now, it offers enough space for everything that two people stranded on the "Olive Island" need.

kitchen, sink, living room, library...

You can live with that even when it rains... oh yes, and the most important thing - a toilet - is also available. After all, you don't want the workers - who may not be coming by regularly at the moment, but still have something to do from time to time - to be watching you when you set off on your mission with a spade...

Regarding the olive grove, in the few weeks since I was there at the beginning of April, nature had reclaimed a good portion of it.

And since Tosi and Bukuria still insist that there are evil snakes - the horned viper, which the Albanians also call the ‘stupid snake’ because, unlike the clever members of its species, it doesn't flee when the ground shakes from the force of the tremors, but waits patiently until the earthquake either passes or moves within striking distance.

The neighbours say that they haven't seen any snakes on their property yet, and Andrea and Elmar haven't encountered anything that can bite or sting either. Maybe they only live in Tosi's fearful mind.

But the grass had to be cut anyway!

Besides, all this mowing is also good for our physical fitness and serves as green fertiliser for the soil for our future projects.

Here in Berlin, the sun is shining – it's Thursday and Ascension Day, also known as Herrentag (the day when you find a lot of groups of drunken men on the streets pulling a handcart with a large supply of beer behind them) – and it is the last long weekend, before the exhausting final eight school weeks of the year. Usually I would have swung myself up onto the saddle for a three or four days bike tour. But the weirdness of existence came up with something else...

My cat is in rabies quarantine. Fortunately at my place, but that also means that no one but me is allowed in here right now exept of me!

I knew that rabies is present in Albania and that stray dogs and cats carry a risk to be infectious. That's why our two puppies, who arrive in Sterbeg on Saturday, are vaccinated. And I thought rabies to be eradicated in Germany. It is, regarding at least all animals moves on the ground. Unfortunately not the flying kind like bats! In addition to Corona, they are now also responsible for my ‘rabies lockdown’, because Gretchen - my unvaccinated indoor cat - couldn't resist catching the flying mouse that had stumbled into my living room...

Disgusted, I fished something out of my slipper on last Saturday that (without my glasses) looked like a dried-up little leaf with a stem or a piece of cat poo with a blade of grass. Strangely enough, though, it had fur... and I threw it in the bin with a big ugh...

Half an hour later - after a long consultation at ‘Dr. Google’ - it was taken out again, placed in a glass in the fridge and taken to the veterinary office on Monday...

Thanks to my sincere rocodile tears, I could prevent Gretchen from being taken to a quarantine centre immediately or - in an even worse case - being ‘put to sleep’ right away. But I am not allowed to receive any visitors until the bat's autopsy results arrive... .

So I have enough time to do what I smiled at a few months ago - Andrea's early packing...

But this virus now also has a merciless hold on me for two weeks. Wherever I am, I grab cardboard boxes of all sizes. Whenever I have time, I go through my cupboards and divide the things in two parties. Those that need to be taken with me andthose that can be thrown away. I keep detailed lists of contents and weight for customs and the shipping company.

And yes, it's a poor substitute for what I'd really like to be doing... being on our construction site, rain or sunshine, with or without snakes and the noise of construction, with temporary solutions and the prospect that it will remain that way for another three months...

And it would feel good – much better than this waiting loop that I have to endure until the end of July and I would love to pull on the grass to make time pass faster ;).

And now I understand Andrea's statement a few weeks ago: ‘We have a lot of work right now, but that's a good thing, because it makes time go faster!’

I laughed about it, but now I know that the weekend is a snail and the school day a weasel ;).