August - September 2010 From Bitter to Sweet.

"Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to Finley, Happy birthday to you" Here we are, another year on from that amazing morning in Halifax when you and your mum changed my life. It seems like only a second has passed and yet so much has happened, some of it wonderful, much of it very challenging. Happy birthday Finn, thank you Beccie.

I love you both,

Let's eat cake, more cake and even more cake.

These have been difficult days my boy. The weight of pain and toil produced sores that needed to be lanced and healed. It wasn’t easy, we both felt so much hurt, but we wanted to get through, we had to get through. You see the alternatives were too terrible. We both love you too much not to try harder, even when we are feeling at an end and lost. I thank you again for that.

Anyway, these months we spent mostly at home in the UK. Little if anything happened on the chantiers. Some zeliging, the last of the decapping, letting the air clear from the smell of too full sewers.

Happy birthday For Finn in Wales.

Back home we celebrated your birthday…more than once…and why not! In Wales, where summer did what it does in Wales and poured with rain we kept warm with verses of happy birthday and yet more chocolate. Despite the wet we baked you cakes and over came Bryn and Lois with their little girl . It's great to see this of my friends. For so long we were just singlies out there being singlies.

Bryn and Lois come to celebrate your birthday.

Now Ian, Bryn, Andy, all have children, it’s another world, a better world. I wouldn’t have given up our “youth”…umm, we all left adulthood pretty late, but this is great. I look forward to us all growing up together in the many years to come.

Not that it was only us who celebrated your birthday, oh no, granny and granpa came over too to add to the celebrations and to raise a glass, as you would say...cheers.

Granny joins in singing in the rain.

We all took the opportunity to get out in to the great British countryside, with the great British weather and, as so ably shown by your Great British Granny, with the great British sense of humour that sees silver linings in any cloud. I have to say at this point, Granny and Grandpa did so very much to help us through our own cloudy weather and as with you, many, many thanks are due to them...thank you both.

We all eat cake again.

Anyway, given the chance to eat cake again and again, you did so with glee…is that a trait from mummy or daddy? Perchance it's the both of us...Which ever, I know we all joined you to finish off what you'd left. It's simply great to see you getting older and bigger.

As I said at the begining, this was a time to celebrate you and what you have brought to us. It was also a time to reflect and recommit to what we all are, together and individually. You are so very much the encapsulation of that and thus, finally we began to heal our wounds and to look past what aren't so much problems as growing pains. We have so much and so much potential, but we need to work hard to realise it and to build upon our strengths.

Home again.

Ultimately we all came home, our home and began to relive our life, looking to a future that we have the chance to shape for ourselves and in which we play such a significant part for and with each other.

Must say tho, I hated having my hair cut by my mum when I was a lad....you seem to be taking it in your stride!

July 2010.....Time to clear the blockages

Finn, the rock star?

You seem to be increasingly looking like a pop star...oops maybe rock star..will you be in a band, you certainly like your heavy dub these days, you bounce away to the heavy, heavy beats....fingers pointing and arms waving.

We're still in the process of moving in to our house. I spoke to a friend Richard who told me it took him and his family 18 months to complete his move. I suppose things are now more complex than "when was a boy".

Putting in Solar Panels..all coming through the roof.

You see how long it takes to move in to a house.We’re thee people, all with our own and jointstuff. I remember moving in to my first flat, I had a rucksack, some records and a player with speakers, a duvet and a futon (bought second hand on the day of the move!)…oh and a box of things for the kitchen…tho no cooker or fridge!

Now we’ve tons of stuff, is that a good thing? I don't know, but I like what we have, African art somehow goes very well in this North African/Arab house. Mind you there are a few things that we've decided to add to our house that I don't think even existed in my youth....like computers and eco water heating systems.

We've decided to put up some solar panels. Of curse they take up a significant space on the top terace, but we feel that apart from the possible "long term" savings, they are the "right thing" to do...it'll be nteresting to see how they work in winter!

The Plunge Pool...can't wait to get in it..tho we do seem to be doing alot of waiting for this detail to the house!

Well we’re making ourself at home, though my idea of having a pool in the house is taking time to realise. It's been a hole in the floor for almost a ear, but apart from holding all number f building materials, it's developed little in that time. We've developed it ourselves and infact whilst they are "easy" to build, the devil is in the detail, and thus we've completed through a mixture of thought, trial and error.....here we are trying to ensure that the thing is water proof with zift and treated cement! Let's hope it works.

Pool on the roof.

Even though we don't have our patio level pool, we do the best we can and you seem happy enough splashing about on the roof. It's certainly quite luxurious having a splash pool over looking the medina and in the heat of these days anything cold and wet is a pleasure!

Unfortunately we do have a problem with our drains. This has been ongoing for months. They have been blocked, perhaps by us, perhaps by other neighbours who have been building also.

The problem is that about five houses filter through one neighbour below (the screamer, remember him?) and he was badly treated previously by promises to complete work on his house if we all could put uor drains that way.

Our Drains looked like this after 3 months of blockages...yes very smelly!

Thus this time he’s said no. Well not exactly no, more not unless you, that’s I, your gaurie, promises to pay for the complete re tiling of his ground floor!!! He told me this, whilst clutching me by the shoulder, looking in to my eyes and saying that it was only because we were friends and he respected me that he would even consider this compromise on his part!

Wouldn’t like to fall out with him!

Obviously I said no and thus months later we were left with our house stinking, filled with flies and un livable in……can you believe it after all this time.

I spoke to the other neighbours….who said the guy was difficult.

I spoke to the Mkdm…who said the guy was difficult.

I spoke to the caid…who asked the Mkdm…who said the guy was difficult.

What can I do, said the Caid, he’s very difficult!

I felt that brown envelope moment coming to the fore.

But no, he advised me to go to the public health department and make a claim as this was a health risk. I was sceptical, but anyway, what was there to lose.

So a complaint duely officially written and stamped, the environmental health department sent someone to investigate.

He looked at my drains, he looked at my neighbours drains, he went to see The Screamer. I expected a call for some sort of financial input, but no. He sat with The Volumous One, ear plugs in and said either he let us clear the drains and simply cover the costs of the work, or he would order that it be completed with a city order.

And so it was done, and what a job that was...yes there is a team that does this sort of thing, what a job! But finally all our drains were cleared….which is just as well, I don't know about anyone else but we were close to overflow!

And yes, the house smells far better now!

Fin and Beccie at home.

Anyway you guys went home and I eventually followed. We had healing to do, I hope it works. You enjoyed being at home with your grandma and grandma as well as spending time again with your cousins again.

And we got time to talk....without any chantiers to complicate things.

June 2010 Finn to the rescue

Finn in Dreamland.

June has seen us continuing our holiday and we moved from Spain to Tangiers and the increasingly developed Mediteranian coast. Fransesca’s dad Graham, manages a great little place there on the beach and on everyday, barr the weekends we had the beach to ourselves. What a joy, well away from the bustle of Fez and anyone come to that.

View from the house in tangiers.

At weekends however the place was packed and as such we went to have a look at Tangiers, a great city and one much maligned. It took me many, many visits to get to Tangiers and once I did, I couldn't help but return time and again. That was in the late 80s/early 90s. Then the city was pretty grimey and slightly dangerous. Certainly comming off the boat was something of an ordeal, but if you managed to stay the course, for even half a day, it would be assumed that you'd either bought what you wanted or lost what you didn't and then you could relax nd enjoy sitting in te petit soco and spending days watching the very varied world of Tangiers, go by.

Motorbike Boy.

Today Tangiers is buzzing. Hotels and boulevards are being developed at a rate of knots and it is beautiful with clear impressions coming from Spain, the Magreb, even England. Stunning. I doubt you paid it too much attention to this, but you certainly gave a wink towards what interested you. I'm afraid you’ll have to wait a while to get moving on that one….tho we’ll have you driving habiby before hand I’m sure!

We returned from holiday to our new but congested home. We began to make our presence felt in the house, though moving in and being in are two very different things. But petite a petite we’re getting there. Life however is still very much in the multitude of boxes that fill the house…Where are the cups or glasses. Where's my tool kit. Why aren't the screws with the CD case and where are the legs to the sofa? And why didn’t I put name tags on any of the boxes?

Boxed in at 813.

Because I’m a bloke, probably! Take a note from your dad, your mum would have done this better!

Firsts at 813.

One of the great things about moving in to a new...well far from new, but newly rebuilt house, is that you get to experience lots of first.....which are bound to include first times that things don't work, but so far these have been few and far between, apart from waking up and hearing water gushing out of somewhere...is it a dream, am I about to wet myself...no, the joint on the tap in the bathroom has blown and the ground flor is floding..where's the stop cock?

However much more enjoyable was having your mum cook a first meal in our top kitchen...which it must be said, is a long way at the top of the house! Good for your cardio vascular health all those stairs...if not these increasingly aged knee joints!

Finn fishing.

But that’s not to say that all was well in our nest. As I say, the years stresses have taken their toll and I think your mum and I really felt that. I've tried to explain previously at how challenging things have been.

Of course we live in some great degree of luxury. We are making our own choices but equally weare having to meet the challenges we have set ourselves, without too much of a support system surrounding us and being a foreigner, trying to build ancient houses when you are not builders, trying to be good parents and wife/husbands/business/life partners...these are individually challenging tasks. Combined..ummm!

We are both wonderful people with great strengths and very human weaknesses. But the cracks were gapping at this point. It was low, very low. To be honest I was far from sure whether we weren’t mortally wounded.

And that’s the thing you see Finn, you make the difference. You make us try harder because you are important and that means we try to find solutions because of you, when we might otherwise give up.

Thank you for that. I know you pulled me back from the edge and losing sight of what we really do have.

As for Tazi, NO we still don’t have plans, or at least those we have finally received have been rejected by the baladier…games, my son, games! But really they are slap dash, what do we pay these people for?

Their signature, is all in reality!

Aside from that, which will certainly hold us up when it comes to destroying the ruin…which is more and more ruinious by the day….we are moving forward slowly and quietly.

Arab plastering at Tazi.

Arab is a great plasterer, and his assistant looks so much like Ronaldo, I’d swear they’re related. You can see how far we are getting with this; down, down and down to the ground floor. That will leave only the stairs which are a final job.

Yes at last we are advancing. Yes there is alot to do, notably with the "neighbours", but the end s in sight....not that that means that it will all be over tomorrow. No, there'll be alot more tomorrows before that. But being in uor house and being able to see real progress with Tazi..that makes a difference!

Decappeurs in the basement.

As I say we can't yet work on the ruin, but we can work on the "lounge" that will lead on t it. The decappeurs are finishing this room that will lead on to the garden....whenever that is built. It should look great…but like all good things...that will take time!

Seb our first visitor to stay at 813

Back in Fez we had our first visit to our new house. Sebastian came over from Jerez, where we've stayed with him so often. Good to see him.

Fez Sacred Music Festival.

Seb and I managed to see a bit of the Fez Festival of Spiritual Music. It's a bit of a strange gig for me. Prices are relatively high and thus, whilst there are some free public events, an awful lot are made exclusive by their cost. But we saw Amadou and Myriam which was excellent, West Africa comes to Fez...and boy do the Fassi need a bit of that!

I also took a visit to the Glaoui Palace, the Fassi home of the fallen family from the south, described magnificently in Lords of the Atlas. The guardian is an old child of a former slave/servent from the family, and the rest of the family are now, I understand, in Europe, having been evicted by Mohamed V.

It really is stunning and like so many f the palaces here in Fez, it gives you a very real impression of the oppulance of the place at the height of it's grandeur.

Glaoui Palace.

Obviously there have been attempts to buy it. As a historical building, it's obviously priceless, though equally it would seem that it's value has so far put it beyond the reach of many hopeful investors.

I have to say that following our experiences with our wo sites, it wouldn’t be me thinking of working on this one….purely for the very strong willed and deep pocketed!

Can’t wait to finish our (in comparison) little project. Size…it’s such a subjective thing!

May 2010 A glimmer of sunshine through the eternal winter of our growing discontent.

I won’t pretend Finn, but there have been times when our choices have taken their toll. What we’ve started here, like so many things, is a marathon and at times it simply feels never ending. I truly doubt we had any idea of what we were embarking on when we launched ourselves in to this, but once we started we had few options but to see it to it’s, probably, bitter end.

And that’s the thing you see, whilst it’s all going on, you can’t see the end. It’s just another day in another week, another month, another year, that goes on and on, as if it will never end, and that gets to you.

The never ending final 3 months.

We simply needed to get past this! We knew it was getting closer but mirage like, we never, no matter how long we worked seemed to reach the illusive end point....it was always 3 months away, and those three months go on and on and on!

Finley tells mummy to change topics of conversation....to his monsters, not ours!

Some might say that we bit off too much; two large chantiers, raising a wonderful child, nurturing a marriage and maintaining our individual sanities..all things that were relatively new to us (excepting the sanity mantainance program…which was never my forte!). And add to that our continued attempts to have another child..phew!. Steep learning curves everywhere, and that took it's toll, there were times when even you had to intervene and say enough was enough...How do you do that?

Times spent outside of the dust of the chantiers came to be consumed with trying to find solutions to current or future problems…thus how are we going to design the kitchen at Tazi …if we ever get the architects plans…let alone the roxa! Little did these women sorting bails of wool know that surrounding them was a solution at hand.

Women sorting bails of wool in Fez Medina

Fortunately it isn’t all work, though there’s been too much and we’ve managed to get out as a family a few times. This was a first, I think for all of us. I can’t remember going to a circus before. You loved it, tho I’m not sure I’d go again…let’s see if we can get you on a safari next time!

Finn at the circus.

We hadn’t had a holiday for years, not even a real break and I think we were probably unaware of how much this had all gotten to us. We’d lost sight of something, that we are doing this all for us and we, not it, are the most important asset that we have, we are what is ultimately important.

It’s easy to say, but easier to forget!

We move in to 813 and that puts a smile back on your mums face. And what a beautiful smile it is!

So at last we managed to be able to move in to an as yet unfinished, but liveable in 813. Of course we all fell ill during the move, but I think, whilst it may have been slightly premature, at least we were in and that raised a smile on mummys face.

The carpenters thought they'd be here till Christmas next Year.....

Of course there were things still left to do. Nabil seemed to have forgotten that we weren't intending to employ him permenantly. His pace of worked slowed and slowed. Of course he was being paid by the day. It's always a great quandry; pay by the day and watch as even the tiniest job takes a week, or pay a forfet and look at the faults generated by quickly done shoddy work! Arghhhhhh.

The Grillage finally goes up...6 months after ordering it!

And then there was some work that entered in to new levels of The Bizarre. We had ordered our terrace grills before Xmas...last year...a job that should only have taken a few weeks to do. Out of nowhere there was a national shortage of iron and so we waited, and waited and waited. But they are beautiful now they are up...Finally!

Beccie manages the move in to our new home!

When we did eventually manage to move out of the watanya and in to our new home, we found ourselves homeless at jen's, all sick and completely knackered. It's a long way from when I first moved in to my flat in Camden armed with a duvet, a stereo and several boxes of records with the help of a friends ford escort. This took the best part of 24 hours, several vans, a good 6 - 7 workers and yet another pound of flesh...not that you'd notice. But once it was all in situ, I think your mum enjoyed overlooking things moving through the house.

Of course despite the grandeur of our house, we've only a tiny derb, all of 65cms at it's thinest point. This made things like sofas, cookers, fridge freezers and other larger furniture a complete nightmare. Fortunately a rare piece of forward thinking on my part ensured that we have a gate through our halka, and thus many pieces came over the top of neighbours, across another ruin and down through the middle of the house.

This being the medina, the best and least public time to move house is in the middle of the night, a common Fassi trait, moving house by candle light. The streets are empty and even the evil eyes behind twitching curtains have fallen aslumber....we started at approx 10.00 packing boxes in to the lift at Watanya, and everyone finally sloaped off after sun rise the next day....was it worth it?..look at your mothers smile above

A first holiday in years...and you guessed it, we spent all our time here.

As a reward for years of toil we finally went on our first family holday and can only highly recommend where we went in the Sierra Norde.

Oh the joy of having a pool and the run of tens of hectares of farmland to just luxuriate in. We needed it, oh boy did we need it. I think that we barely moved from the pool for the majority of the time we had there. Just to be away from chantiers, makadms, mwalems, demands for fluuss and people talking rubbish at you, with the assumption that you are simply a fool. Oh to have left that behind. Never let us forget, even if we some day waffle on otherwise, that this has been and continues to be, the hardest job I, and I suspect we, have ever done...oh how little we knew when we started looking at houses so many years ago!

Finn the horse whisperer.

The only thing that got us off our derriers or from the pool was giving you the run of the place and of course you made friends and had new adventures.

Obviously you have a way with animals and given your affinity for language made efforts at learning another new one..can you remember the secret she told you?

Finn sees the pigs.

This being you, it wasn’t all about listening. No, what impressed me was that you had such a fine tuned understanding of how you felt it most appropriate to react to different animals. And this wasn't without some significant reflection as illustrated best with this set of pigs we met in the forests.

Finn consideres his options.

Obviously it's good to see you in deep reflection as to your options. Umm, I wonder what they are? Have you even seen animals like these? Not where we've come from. Thus you are considering the unknown, a whole new possibility of consequences. Surely small steps are an option, incremental movements in any direction? What will you choose to do?

Finn makes his decision!

You saw, you thought and you charged right in.

Simply fearless.

I love you.

April 2010 The Family Visits and a Butterfly Flaps it's wings

Another month and things move on. You’ve been the lucky recipient of loads of love and affection as Uncle Tim, Auntie Michelle and your cousins came to visit you and to see what you and we have been doing these past many, many years!

Uncle Tim made himself at home easilly and enjoyed all local produce to the full.

Yes people have been to see us, but this is the first time that we’ve been close to a finished product. I have to say I found the opportunity for it being lead ballooned, slightly frightening. But my fears were soon allayed.

Ofcourse we’d wanted to get in to 813 so that everyone could stay there, but the truth was, with all the plaster on the walls, the house was more like a sauna than a place to lay your head of an evening.Nonetheless I think it went down OK...at least everyone seemed to have a good laugh..was that at us or with us?

Now having cousins is a great thing as apart from giving you lots of LURVE they have lots to teach you and you love that.

Jo taught you how to be cool, which is a great skill he's developed over years of practie.

Louis taught you how to make sand castles.

And Jo and Louis taught you how to play football...what silky skills they have again took practice...let's hope you get to do the same.

Ofcourse the most important skills are often held by women and thus Sasha taught you how to join the dots, which is a tremendous life skill!

It wasn’t all about learning and we had some time out where you showed them some of your favourite places and of course shared your keen interest in insect life....by the way where did that beatle end up...I noticed something rather crunchy in my tajine that night!

I think they all liked it up on Zalagh and I know Sahsha enjoyed watching mummy making a special mountain tajine…yum yum..you didn't give her that beatle did you!

Back at the brick face, everyone got a chance to see how far the hotel was going and to get an idea of the task behind us and what is left to do.

Yes...before you ask, we are still awaiting a roxa, jesus we’re still trying to get our plans from the architect. In the mean time we do things that don’t need planning permission and the decappeurs are doing a great job. The wood on the halka looks beautiful.

I think Louis felt at home and certainly looked as if he was about to get stuck in at any moment….or maybe he was just considering the job a hand! What ever he certainly gave the impression of cool...yes he's got that too!

Well all good things come to an end and it was soon time for everyone to go home and for life to return to normal….not that mummy can remember what that is!!!

Anyway, as we’ve learnt from the chantiers, “always expect the unexpected”…that’s a good life skill too. Except this time it was a global event that kicked in. Just as Michelle, Tim and family were preparing to leave, so a butterfly flapped it’s wings…..I know, I know daddy get on with it….but anyway, a volcano in iceland spread so much smoke that suddenly all planes were cancelled, all cars, busses and trains were booked out and our guests had to begin to consider the option of joining us more permenantly in Morocco.

However there’s nothing like adversity to engage a cunning plan and thus our seeming wealth of 4 x 4 transport meant that Tim got to share the joys of landrover driving…what a sight to see them all packing in to our Green Giant…I believe Tim enjoyed it so much he’s thinking of getting himself one..mind you he loved the Mercedes taxis too!

Having disbanded the Escape From Fez Committee (tho I think mummy has retained a sub group somewhere!) life returned to normal, which also meant seeing friends .

Richard celebrated another birthday which brought a tickle to mummy and Jen and we all went off to sefrou to celebrate life the universe and many other things with Jess.

You of course hung out with the ladies, peering at things beyond us adults. There must have been something down there that caught your eyes.

Whatever it was it certainly got you and Fransesca animated..which isn’t too difficult!

What do you two talk about?