Now...where were we...?

It's often been said that the thing to do with blogs is blog short, and blog often. I appear to have swung from blogging often and at length to blogging not at all - that's 9 months back in the UK for you. Oops.

It's not like we've been idle. Since my last post in June last year both Emma and I have somehow scored new jobs with better pay - although I went about it in typically unorthodox fashion by getting sacked by text (!) mere hours before handing in my notice (that first day sitting next to Carolina Kluft in first class turned out to be the literal high point of my employ). We've lived in Islington, Dulwich, Clapham and Wimbledon and are now, finally, settled in Surrey - for the moment at least. We've said hello to a couple of mountain bikes, waved a teary goodbye to our trusty Honda and somehow managed to sell the heap of plastic and digital crap that was our malfunctioning Renault Espace the same day that it was voted the 296th least reliable car in the UK (out of - ahem - 296). Bizarrely, Renault announced this year that they would launch 4 all-electric cars by 2014, which is a bit like Toyota suddenly announcing they're going to make nothing but accelerator pedals...

Hahahahaahaha! Don't be silly.

Of course, our build has also had to change as a result of our enforced absence. Managing a renovation remotely is rather different to living through every stone, beam and plumbing pipe; progress is measured not in daily but monthly intervals. The decisions we make as architects of our own home can no longer grow organically as the build trundles towards completion - with just 20 days holiday a year, our visits are brief. We have to react sharply and decisively and hope to hell we get it right. Umming and ahh-ing is no longer permitted.

It's essential, therefore, to be able to trust your builder to carry out the instructions you've left them and also to get the big calls right when you're not able to view the situation for yourself. That's why we love Zlatko Vujotic.

We love Zlatko. So does Sara

Gone are the days when we'd leave the site for a week and return to find windows had been put in the wrong place or our workers had disappeared. Gone are the days when we'd be presented with a bill for twice the money for half the work. Gone are the days when we'd have a sense of dread every time we spoke to the builder, developing a Pavlovian response that practically left us with a phobia of our own house.

I inspect the renovated konoba in November prior to tiling

Now that's looking better...

The near completed terrace. Rendering has had to wait as we need a run of rain-free weather - hard to come by in winter here!

This is what it looked like back in November. Behind me the landscaped gardens expertly hide the septic tank. The giraffe-style stonework has faded nicely with the weather, I'm pleased to say.

Goran and Bik start our ill-fated wall

The crew tuck into a hearty breakfast!

As you can see, since taking over the project last summer, Zlatko has transformed our house. Thanks to his dedicated team of craftsmen we have a functioning septic system. We have beautiful rendering inside and out, and top notch stone and metalwork covering our terrace and balcony. We have a series of stone steps and walkways on landscaped gardens (the latter done for free because "it makes more beautiful"), a chimney, a tiled ground floor and thanks to our gentle plumber, Dragan, we now have full plumbing in the bathrooms, which are being tiled as I type this. We have a border wall.

Well, at least for the moment. It's never all good news, is it?

It turns out that two of our less helpful neighbours have thrown a potential spanner in the works regarding the wall. Clearly still holding a grudge over our refusal to pay well over the odds for a water connection we didn't need or to let them put an electricity pylon in our garden back in May last year, they're now trying to get this wall knocked down because they claim it's overstepped our land's boundaries by about a metre (despite being built on the exact spot where the Staletovic family's old wire and post fence used to be).

My red pen marks the site of the old fence, on the boundary of our land, just off the edge of the asphalt.

Above, the foundations for the wall clearly on our land...

Emma inspects the wall this February. This is the section under threat.

According to the land registry records it doesn't look like they have a leg to stand on but this is Montenegro, where such paper legalities can prove very succeptible to "persuasive alteration". We might well have to have part of the wall removed and rebuilt just to ensure things don't escalate further. It's sad that some people can be this petty, but in reality it's Zlatko and his team who have been more offended and inconvenienced. He has invested in the local restaurant, Badanj, and even stocks one of the complainants' wine, so wrongly accusing him (and us) of building on supposed "state" land is a pretty poor way to repay him! After all, his team are the poor buggers who will have to do all the work - one metre here or there doesn't make any difference to us. Still, nice to know that we have now ticked off both the immutable pit-falls of building abroad - dodgy builders (the unlamented Bolimir) and nasty neighbours. We've tried to explain our long-term plans to them, and that we are not profiteering Russians but a young couple keen to help develop the local tourist economy, but they just don't care. We didn't let them put their pylon in our garden. We must therefore be punished!

Unedifying as this squabble might be, we're not letting it put us off the area. The vast majority of people in and around Virpazar have been wonderful to us both, especially when we were living there. And it's still spectacularly beautiful, even during a winter that has by all accounts been even colder and wetter than the one we endured (hence further building delays)!

Our next visit at the end of April might be a biggie. First of all, we're hoping to see the completion of all stone work outside (wall excepted) and all bathrooms inside, as well as final plastering work. Second of all, we're hoping to install some fairly major items, such as the kitchen and our spiral stairs. Bizarrely, it's still cheaper to buy these items in the UK, freight them to Monty by truck and pay local PDV and import duties than it is to buy an inferior product just down the road...go figure. Then we have to think about lighting and furniture...and gardening, painting, decorating...

So when do we think we'll be done?

Well, given that we are currently a faintly laughable 10 months behind schedule, it's probably not sensible to answer that one. Let's just say soon. Ish. We hope.

In the meantime, by popular demand, here's Slavisa! He claims he doesn't look like Robert de Niro - but that Robert de Niro just happens to look like him. What do you think?

So, until next time. Remember to have a look at Emma's Flickr albums - click on the slideshow at the top right of this page to see all of these pics and more at a resolution that doesn't require squinting. She updates those with rather better regularity than I manage these days...