The joys of restoring a riad in Fez.

It is 7.30 in the evening on a balmy night in the Fez Medina and the muezzin has just started the call to prayer. His voice and the distant calls from at least two hundred other mosques is greeted by a clamouring twittering from the dozen or so sparrows that live in the trees and rafters of our riad. The only other noise is the gentle bubbling and splashing of the fountain.

Yet earlier in the day you could hardly hear yourself think! The stonemason and his two helpers hammering away at the walls, the "decapo"ladies (paint-strippers) chattering at the top of their voices and the other workers calling out jokes to each other.

The "decapo" ladies - Halima & Fatima

Having the evening respite is great - but the work starts again in the early hours of the morning.

So - with all this noise and work - what is actually happening? The kitchen would have been completed by now, but a friend had a brainwave about creating a traditional "halka" in the ceiling so that we would have a view of the extraordinary massiriya ceiling some eight metres above. It is hundreds of years old and beautifully carved and painted. The halka will create a hole almost two metres square and will have carved masrabiya screens around the balcony edge.

The view of the ceiling from the kitchen

The execution of the idea to build a halka involves much telephoning of structural engineers, architects and knowledgeable builders. It also means sourcing massive cedar beams and much measuring and checking of lengths and heights - all of which are out of reach or mean scrambling up rickety scaffolding. Our English friends, Jenny and John, proved their mountaineering prowess and came up with the figure.

Are we having fun? Yes. Is it exhausting and frustrating? Yes - would I be anywhere else? No.



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