Monday 12 October 2009

Obrasprazotory Update

I'm conscious I've been neglecting updating you on the various obrasprazotories going on around the island. You'll recall that obrasprazotory is a word I made up from the Portuguese words obras - "works" - and prazo - "period of time" - to signify an ongoing job which it's fun to inspect periodically to see how it's getting on.

The reason for the silence is that the various obrasprazotories I'd previously covered all tended to have an early surge of activity and then plateau a bit. Anyway, even if the graph has gone a bit flat, that's not to say there hasn't been progress so here goes:-

1. The shop/bar in Fajã Grande

With this one, I hadn't realised when it began that the job involved re-doing the interior of upstairs over the shop as well as the exterior of the whole building. Anyway, outside is about 90% complete with the remaining 10% awaiting completion of inside which is still ongoing. And now as I type this, I realise I don't have a recent picture of progress outside because I've been conscious I've been waiting for it to be finished before photographing it again. Anyway, I took this one this afternoon. It looks a bit dull but observe that it would have been very simple for Joe and Linda to have ordered up replacement UPVC windows but instead they've opted to have the wooden ones refurbished - the mouldings on the lower, unglazed panel are new in today (and, of course, haven't been painted yet). Inside the window, the lintel of the embrasure (the Portuguese have a nice easy word for "lintels of the embrasure" which is vãos) has been renewed and a couple of weeks ago you were looking at bare laths here:-

2. The church in Santa Cruz

Again, after something of a plateau phase, this is now coming on in leaps and bounds with scaffolding up on the facade and Soo-Lucino's boys painting away for all they're worth. These are the same boys who were painting at our house when S-L was doing our palheiro two years ago so I got a cheery wave as I took this picture:-

In a subsequent post(s) (as this one is at risk of getting over long), I'll bring you up to speed on the house down the road (the addition today of smart new stainless steel banisters to the new external staircase outside of which reminded me to review the obrasprazotory list), the Câmara Municipal and the GNR building in Santa Cruz (these two also being Soo-Lucino jobs so the colcha em lã - whatever it was - obviously cut the mustard) and the harbour works at Lajes. And the new museum in Fajã Grande.

2 comments:

Marisa said...

Poor Linda & José António.

Kathie said...

Portuguese Lesson for the day:

You still haven't found out what a "colcha em lã" is? It's literally a blanket made of wool, although I imagine in the Azores it refers to a multi-colored hand-crocheted afghan that's hung out a window or off a balcony overlooking the street, especially during a public parade.

I suspect Soo Lucino = Seu Lucinho, since "Seu" in this context is an honorific that's a bit more respectful than Mr. In this context it means "Sir" -- though not in the sense of the British nobility, more like "Yes, sir," "No, sir" or "May I help you, sir?"

Hope you all had a delightful time during Baby Chou's visit, and that additional watercress recipes -- besides the soup she's already posted on her "Le Moulin" blog -- ensue.