Highly decorated

We're having Work Done on the house. It warrants capital letters, as it involves major renovation rather than just eg slapping up some sticker murals, or changing the lightshades.

It all started last summer.

Our next-door neighbours have been engaged on a lengthy and all-encompassing renovation project in their house, which included replacing one of their wood-burning stoves.  The stove they took out was not very old, and in excellent condition, so we asked if we could buy it* to fit into our fireplace, and thus be rid of the 1970s sandstone crazy paving fireplace which I have loathed since the day we first viewed the house.

I've been looking through my photos to see if I ever took one of it, but I think I must have tried to crop it out whenever I used a camera in there, as it was so awful. I did manage to capture the magic of a new log burner being installed, though.

Once the chimney breast was denuded of the horrible yellow "stone" and given a new coat of plaster, the rest of the room suddenly looked dreadful in comparison.

Mr WithaY and I had several earnest discussions about What Actually Needs Doing In Here, and each time the list grew longer.  By the start of this year we had decided that the answer to the question "What do we need to sort out" was "Everything, including the electrics."  Time to make some phone calls, then.

The first person to call in any event of this nature, as longer-term readers will know, is Kevin the Decorator.  He came round, looked at the walls and ceiling, listened to our plans and then said "Yeah, I can do all that. Not the plastering though.  I'll give you my mate's number, he's a good plasterer."

So we called the plasterer.  He came round, looked at the walls and ceiling and said "Yeah, I can do all that. Not taking down the ceiling though.  It'll be much cheaper if you take the ceiling down yourselves."  Mr WithaY and I nodded in agreement.  Neither of us has very much experience taking down ceilings, but really, how hard could it be?

I said "At least you don't have to plaster the wall above the fireplace, that's only been done recently."  The plasterer ran his hand over it with narrowed eyes before opining "Yeah. But to be honest, it's a bit shit, isn't it?"  Reader, it was indeed a bit shit.  We opted to have the whole room skimmed.

Once the first blow has been struck, there is no going back.

The first cut really was the deepest. Then it was a festival of hammers and crowbars, and the unstinting practical assistance of our next-door neighbour, who is clearly a bit bored now he's finished renovating his own house.

Mr WithaY spent a couple of days removing nails from the joists, channelling all the electrical and hi-fi cabling where it will be out of sight, and left the room in a fit state for the plasterer to work his magic.

In the meantime, Simon the Electrician came round. I like Simon. He is a thoughtful man, prone to long silences when you ask him questions while he thinks deeply about the answer.  He knows his stuff, and takes electrical things very seriously.  I asked him why he was so meditative in conversation, and commented that he really does like to consider his options before replying.  He looked at me for a long moment, before saying: "That's because with plumbing, if you get it wrong you get a wet floor.  With electrics, if you get it wrong, the house burns down." 

I hadn't though of it in those terms, and with that in the back of his mind all the time, I can understand why he takes a while to get his ducks in a row.

Anyhoo, Simon the Electrician plumbed in cables and so on for the new lighting we decided to install, and went away until there was a ceiling in place he could cut holes in.

And Lo! There was a new ceiling. And it was good.

The plasterer came back, and in what felt like record time we had smooth walls and a ceiling with no visible lumps and bumps. 

A few days for the plaster to dry, Simon the Electrician returned to fit the new lights (with dimmer switches! How posh are we?) and then Kevin the Decorator was back, transforming the room into something which feels like home again.

We moved a chair back in there so Mr WithaY had somewhere to sit and review stuff for work.  I think it feels a bit cluttered now, to be honest.  Maybe the dog basket could go somewhere else.

The ceiling and walls above the picture rail are the same shade of pale green, and the walls below are a darker shade, which looks absolutely gorgeous.  I am very excited about getting our furniture back in there. 

We went for Farrow and Ball paint, which left me in a froth of anxiety about being That Woman, but apparently they are top quality and look superb, so I am prepared to suffer the opprobrium of being middle class as fuck.

I've been in touch with a company who renovate parquet floors, and they will (I hope) be getting back to me to let me know when they could come and restore ours to shiny, non-damaged loveliness.

The downside to all this industry, apart from the GAAAAH HOW MUCH cost of it all, is that the house is almost uninhabitable.  The kitchen is full of furniture (coffer, coffee table, drinks cabinet, multiple sofa cushions, various electronic items), as is the spare bedroom (blinds, curtains, rug, ornaments, clock), Mr WithaY's study (upended sofa, huge box of DVDs, CD cabinet) and the hallway (upended sofa.) 

There's nowhere to sit and eat a meal.  We've been either going out to eat, or pretending we're students/in a hotel and eating upstairs in the bedroom, which is not as much fun as you might think.

The dog has found it all a bit trying, I imagine.  She has taken to coming upstairs to sleep at night - usually she is not allowed upstairs - but as the house is in chaos I am allowing it for now.  The downside to that is that she tends to wander up and downstairs in the middle of the night, and if you get up to use the bathroom (women of a certain age blah blah) at 4am, she leaps up, cavorting around you while she wags joyfully, imagining that you might be about to do something fun.  Idiot.

HOWEVER.  The end is in sight.  The curtains are at the dry cleaner's, the painting is almost finished, the furniture will soon be rid of its thick caking of dust.

Once everything is moved back into the room, we are going to look at the vast WithaY art collection and decide what we want to hang on the walls.  There are several new items from JAPAN (we went, it was great, we're going back, more on this anon) which will be framed and hung as a group, as well as some of the pictures which were in there previously. 

Doing all this - the last time we decorated was in 2003, there was a date and our names written in the wall under the wallpaper** - has made me feel much more positive about making changes to the rest of the house and garden.  Sometimes you can get a bit stuck in your environment, and it feels like it's impossible to move on.  This has been like opening a window in a stuffy room, allowing fresh air in.

In the mean time, our kitchen table looks like this.

Don't judge me.

Cheers!





*As they are the best neighbours imaginable, they gave it to us as a present. 

**Prior to that it was 1975, by the previous owners I assume.

It costs a lot of money to look this cheap

This week is the (sort of) official start to the new way of life in the WithaY household. 

Mr WithaY finished his job last week - although today is the last formal paid working day for him - and had a leaving party on Friday lunchtime at the pub.  It was very pleasant, a lot of his colleagues came to join him, some travelled some distance to be there, which was very touching.  There were the traditional semi-embarrassing speeches, the giving of gifts and cards, and then it was home for tea and medals.

Twenty eight years and one day, he's done.  It's a long time, and a lot of memories.  But now it's all change, moving forward with the new life and all that.  We're both still feeling positive about it all, despite the facts that:

a) We are no longer earning any money
b) The world economy seems to be doomed.  DOOOOOOOMED
c) Winter is coming

Hey, what's the worst that can happen?  Frankly, given the amount of shite* that we have coped with together over the last few years, I think we can handle it, whatever it is. 

So.  Today.  Dawning of a new era etcetera etcetera etcetera.

We began by getting up at a reasonable hour, drinking tea, eating porridge and listening to Radio 4 Extra, a radio station I like more and more.  All very domestic. 

Then Kevin the Decorator arrived.  He's great.  He's fixing the huge unsightly crack across the bedroom ceiling, repainting the (cracked) bathroom ceiling, repainting the water-stained patch on my study ceiling, and replacing the broken front doorstep in our porch.  He can do anything. 

Mr WithaY made him a cup of tea, then headed off to see his mate Josh in Somerset.  They are both on the bushcraft training course, and he handily lives nearby**.  Josh is having our hideously uncomfortable futon for his house (although the more I hear about the house the more it sounds like a shelter made from brash in the forest) and in return he is helping Mr WithaY make a knife.  For bushcrafting. 

Mr WithaY has lately also been making lengths of cord out of nettle fibres.  It was the homework he was given after the last bushcraft course instalment.  The mice set up home in the bundles of cord-making and fire-lighting vegetation he has been garnering, hence his determination to remove them at all costs.  Well, peanut butter doesn't grow on trees.  Unlike the bark he needs for kindling.

He is thoroughly enthusiastic about his new career choice, which is excellent. I am going to have to learn to tolerate the seemingly endless collections of twigs, bark, reeds, plant seeds and Interesting Bits Of Wood that are accumulating around him.  He's like Saint Francis of Assisi, but for woodland detritus.

I've been sorting out stuff around the house, hence Kevin the Decorator's visit, partly in preparation for the winter, partly to try and kick start myself a bit as I have got lazy over the last couple of weeks.  In fact, once I finish this, I am going to cut out a load of cushion covers that I have been meaning to do for about 3 weeks now. 

Yeah.  Lazy.

Later on this week we are off to Gloucestershire for our lovely mates' wedding, which I am very much looking forward to.  I am hoping their mad spaniels will be dressed as bridesmaids, with baskets of rose petals around their necks but I fear I may be in for disappointment.
 
The hen party I went to last week was interesting.  I'd never been to a hen party before, which for a woman in her mid-40s is remiss.  It was at a "Spa Hotel" near Bath***, and whist the hotel part was mostly ok, the spa wasn't great.  Perhaps I am spoilt by having been to Ragdale Hall a couple of times.  However, I don't think that having to walk across a car park and a fairly busy road in your robe and slippers to get to the treatment rooms is very nice, or wait in the lobby of the block while guests and conference attendees squeeze past you.  Not classy.

The treatments themselves were fine; I had a sparkly manicure:

It lasted approximately 36 hours before I'd mangled the polish to such an extent that I had to take it all off again.

We had Champagne and nibbles and balloons and all sorts in one of the rooms before dinner, everyone dolled up in their party finery:

The photo is blurred due to Champagne.  Note the straws with plastic cocks on.  Niiiiice. 

We ate a pleasant dinner in the restaurant, in a little side room that was semi-private so our laughing didn't (I hope) disturb too many other guests.  However, after dinner we went back to one of the rooms and had more Champagne, and I suspect we may have been a tad noisy.  But bugger it, I'll not be going back there, so it doesn't matter, eh?

The hotel could be really lovely, but they consistently failed to get things right - everyone's bill was wrong, so we had to get them all recalculated, and even then they didn't seem to charge us for all the wine we had, despite being asked several times to check the numbers.  The bedroom I was in was clean and comfy, despite one or two issues with the bathroom****, and the food was (mostly) good, if a bit chaotic and disorganised.  It was ok for a one night "party" awayday.  I'd have been very disappointed if I'd booked it as a spa weekend break. 

I had a two day hangover afterwards, which I am blaming on lack of sleep. 

Right.  Cushion time. 










*See multiple previous posts about ill health, various family crises, the Shitstorm From Hades, many and varied tiresome work hassles, yadda yadda yadda...

**Within 50 miles.

***We went here...the reviews are a fair reflection of my own experience. 

****The shower head was hanging on by a thread from a large ragged hole in the ceiling, and the sink drain stank of sewage.  Not nice when brushing your teeth with a hangover. 

Cars

I discovered the "Stats" thingy on Blogger recently.  What larks.  It shows me where all my readers are at any given moment, and which posts they are looking at.

Sadly, this has simply notified me that a lot of my traffic is from people who are looking at very old posts, mostly in Russia, the spamming bastards.  At least the word verification seems to have put paid to their antics.  Ah well.  As long as I don't analyse the stats too carefully I can pretend it's really people who are keen to read the words, and not just post adverts to their dodgy websites.  Bastards.

Today has been a bit like a traditional Whitehall farce, despite me not being in Whitehall.  I had a lot of complicated time-consuming work stuff to get through, so my laptop decided to re-enact a good old-fashioned go-slow.  Added to this, every 20 minutes or so it crashed whichever application I was using at the time, varying between Word, Excel and Powerpoint to keep me guessing. 

Mr WithaY arrived home unexpectedly mid morning as he had someone coming over to look at his old Landrover, languishing unloved since he got the new one.  There was a degree of arseing about as he fetched keys, and found paperwork, but then he scooted off again, returning a while later to meet the potential buyer.  The potential buyer turned into an actual buyer, but when he came back to collect the vehicle, Mr WithaY had gone back to work and the bloody thing wouldn't start.

He rang the doorbell and asked me if there was "any special technique" to starting it.  I said no, you just turn the key and off it goes.  He looked at me.  I looked at him.  We both looked at the Landrover, bonnet up while his wife fiddled about uselessly with the steering wheel.  I was already tetchy, due to the IT failures mentioned above, and also due to my ankle being painful after my latest trip to the physio, so I rang Mr WithaY at work and suggested he come home to sort this crisis out.  I was a trifle terse, I believe. 

There was an awkward silence as the farmer and his wife looked at each other, and at the Landrover sitting on the drive, silent and unmoving.  A brainwave struck me, and I mentioned that it had an immobiliser. The farmer's face lit up.  He dicked about with the key, then tried to start it, and hey presto, it roared into life.

I went back into the house and rang Mr WithaY again, telling him not to come home after all.

The farmer, his wife, and the landrover eventually left, allowing me to go back up to my study to get on with my work.

Five minutes later, Kevin the Decorator arrived.

Ten minutes after that, the phone downstairs rang, someone from Talk Talk who cut himself off, the fuckwit.  .

And so the long day wore on. 

Tomorrow I am going into London for some peace and quiet.

Disjointed

So, long time no see.  To be honest, it's all been a bit too stressful and depressing here, so I haven't felt much like writing anything.

I'm cold. And tired. And grumpy. And a bit sad because Mr WithaY has headed off to live on a boat in the Red Sea for a week, for more shark-tagging high jinks.  He's back at the end of next week and I am really looking forward to it.  The house feels too big.  And the cold I had last week that seemed to fizzle out has fizzled back in, so I am snotty as well.  Nice. 

Anyway.  It occurred to me the other day that the funky visitor counter that I was all excited about is merely recording the number of times this blog is accessed from that particular country. So arse. I might only have 4 readers in the UK, but they check back often.

Thanks to the lovely people who responded to tell me where they at, though. The Canadians, especially. Aren't you all polite?

Today I have mostly been cleaning up, as Kevin the Decorator has finished.  The hall, landing and stairs look lovely.  The walls and celing are pale cream  (yes, alright, magnolia) and the woodwork and doors are all white.  The loft hatch, which has been a grubby stripped wood eyesore for 8 years is now a thing of beauty.  I put the pictures back up yesterday, and that was nice.  Moving them all round a bit means you look at them as you go up and down the stairs, they look different somehow.  Trouble with all the decorating is that everything in the house is dusted with very fine, well, dust. 

And, talk of the devil, he just came to drop off the house key and his invoice.  Money well spent I think.

I'm off to see Father-in-Law WithaY, who will be fretting about shark attacks. It's a rock and roll lifestyle I lead here.

Decorated

Hell of a story on the news lately about the young Army officer who ran out of ammunition. It's very easy to imagine conflict going on at arm's length, all remote and technical like a video game, till you hear about this kind of thing.  Blimey.

I was at Salisbury hospital a while back, hanging round the plastic surgery department while they assessed how well Mr WithaY's fingers were healing. 

He got the thumbs-up* from the surgeon, and we headed back to the car.  To get out of the hospital you had to walk along a huge corridor, passing many different side wards and rooms and so on. 

As we walked, a nurse came out of a side corridor pushing a wheelchair.  In the wheelchair was a young man.  Well, most of a young man.  He'd lost one arm, one leg (on the opposite side to the arm), most of the fingers on his remaining hand, and his face and body were a network of scars.  He looked about 21.  As they passed us I heard the nurse asking him "So, what medal are they giving you?"

I had to stop in an alcove and blow my nose for a few minutes. 

I'm feeling a bit grumpy and out of sorts today, with a scratchy sore throat and a headache.  It may just be because I am tired after the weekend and a couple of bad nights since, but if not, then I am getting a cold.  Which, with my track record is bound to turn into chest infection.  Ah yes, look on the bright side, I always say. 

Other news:  Kevin the Decorator is back!  He is doing our hall, stairs and landing....walls, ceilings, woodwork and all.  We bought the paint ages ago, and were full of good intentions to do it ourselves, but what with everything** going on over the summer we just didn't get round to it. 





* heh
**involuntary amputation, bereavement, SSFH, all that stuff.

Doing It Ourselves

It's been a big day in the WithaY household. Possibly one of those days that everyone remembers in years to come as The Big Day, in capital letters.

We own our very own proper lawnmower. Not a strimmer. Not a Flymo. Not an electric one. It's a proper petrol-driven, grown-up, lean, mean grasscutting machine.

As soon as we got back from the DIY shop, Mr WithaY went out and cut the front and back lawns, then stood looking out of the windows in all parts of the house to admire his handiwork. Every now and again he would sigh contentedly and say "Have you looked at the lawns yet?" in case I had missed the beauty that was The Cut Grass.

I tried to join in by pulling up some weeds, but got bored and left the two of them alone together, roaring round the garden in a mist of grass cuttings and fumes.

We also bought shitloads of paint to decorate our hall and stairs. We decorated them in a bit of a hurry when we first moved in, because it was all so depressing. The walls were covered with what had once been rather nice paper, but over the 30 years it had been up, it had got discoloured and filthy. The paintwork was pale brown from years of heavy smoking in the house, and everything was slightly sticky.

So, we stripped the walls, scrubbed the paintwork, which was actually white (mostly), put up thick lining paper and slapped on a couple of coats of pale pink emulsion. Worked a treat, and really warmed up the place.

Eight years on, the rest of the house has been decorated to a much higher standard, usually by professionals, and the hall and stairs now look, frankly, shit.

There is now a collection of tins of paint, new brushes and rollers waiting to be deployed. The plan was that Mr WithaY and I would do it* over Easter.

However, today, during the course of a visit to Father-in-Law WithaY, Mr WithaY mentioned ever-so-casually that he was going fishing all day on Friday. Oh, and diving all day on Sunday. And he is away for work on Thursday evening.

Hmmm.

So, looks like I will be getting on with the decorating on my own, which is a bit of a shame, because I am of the "fuck it, near enough" school of decorating, and Mr WithaY belongs to the "micro-millimetre perfect" school of decorating.





*fnar

Printer error

Was watching The New Adventures of Superman the other night. One of the episodes where Nazis try to take over the world. There was some kind of a complex plot involving cryogenic freezing, political skulduggery and a bomb, but I wasn't giving it my full attention.

Until this struck me...

Whenever an evil organisation attempts a coup involving the overthrow of the media (especially the Daily Planet), they always have a huge supply of posters, billboard hoarding thingies, pre-recorded videos of themselves gloating and dishing out orders, and those huge building-sized fabric wall hangings, ready to be unfurled at the drop of a hat.

All nicely printed up with their evil logo, in this instance, swastikas.

Why don't the printers just call the police and foil the plot? Tea and medals all round.

They get a rush order in for ten thousand huge banners saying "All Hail the New Evil Regime, Death to All Who Oppose Us, Especially Superman, The Bastard" or something similar, but they never blow the whistle.

Presumably an evil mastermind turns up at the print shop with a badly-sketched image on the back of a fag packet, demands they design a decent one, tells them how many posters etc he wants, and by when ("My Evil Plan comes to fruition on Wednesday, so by 11am would be great, thanks"), and the printers just take the money and get on with it.

What are they thinking? Tch.

Other news: The WithaY house is uncannily tidy. Mr WithaY has been slowly but surely sifting through several years worth of crap in his study, and we can now see the floor again. Just as well because our mate Big Les is sleeping in there on Saturday night.

Kevin the Decorator has played an absolute blinder and the downstairs loo is stripped, pipe-removed, scrubbed, wood-clad and painted, and looks the biz. He is coming back tomorrow to fit new under-stair shelves, and it will then be finished.

I am going to move one of my stained glass panels from upstairs to cover the window in there (for privacy as otherwise it's a clear view out into the garden...and back in of course), and it is all ready.

Our American guests are actually turning up on Friday, not Thursday as we originally thought. They leave Boston on Thursday, but don't get here till Friday. I hope they're not too horribly jet lagged. Still, the spare room is lovingly prepared for them. I plumped the pillows up specially.*

We're off to Salisbury tomorrow to get some Big Town shopping and hopefully also get to the pictures to see Stardust.

I re-read it on the train the other week whilst trying to get to London. It is a lovely, lovely story. If you haven't read it, do so. And then read American Gods. Go on. You'll thank me one day.

Shamefully, I realised that I love that Take That song from the film. Gah. How embarrassing. I like a Take That song.

But (hasty attempt to re-establish some feeble rock chick credentials) I can now play "Teenage Kicks" on the geeetar, and it sounds bloody marvellous.



*Not a euphamism. Tch.

Infrastructure, lack of

I have had two days of nighmarish travelling, and am exhausted. Should be reclining on a chaise longue with a teeny lace and satin hankie in my trembling hand.

First travel nighmare: London.

Left home to catch the 0715 train, which gets me to London by 0915, plenty of time to get across town and have a cup of tea, brush hair, slap on some lippy etc before the meeting.

Or so I thought.

Train got to Salisbury. I hopped off and onto the big fast London train as planned. No problems thus far. Arrived at Basingstoke only 10 minutes late. Still not too bad.

However.

The nice man sitting opposite caught my attention* (was listening to my iPod and reading Neil Gaiman) and said "I think we have to get off here...there are problems with the signals".

Hm. Not good.

So, a whole trainful of people disembarked and scurried down the tunnel, under the lines, up the other side and across to the waiting train on the opposite platform. The already-full waiting train. Which had been held back for 20 minutes so it could meet our train.

How the delayed, crammed-in passengers laughed as an extra trainload piled in around them.

I was fortunate enought ot find a seat (not First Class, but I wasn't going to push my luck), but there were dozens of people who had to stand up all the way from Basingstoke to Waterloo.

Oh yeah, and there was an extra stop at Woking to pick up even more passengers, who should have caught the first train. The one still sitting at Basingstoke, presumably. Bloody nightmare.

We finally crawled into Waterloo at 1020, over an hour late. I scampered across to my meeting (taking some funky escalator photos on my mobile on the way) and was only 30 minutes late.

Four hours from leaving my house to getting to the meeting. Sheesh. FOUR HOURS. Not impressive.

Coming home, I got to Waterloo, found the right platform, had to use a different gate as mine was shut, and ran onto it just as my train pulled away. I thought about running along beside it, waving my arms and shrieking, but couldn't be arsed.

Went and bought some chocolate buttons and a Telegraph instead, and sat quietly for 40 minutes till the next train arrived.

So.

Almost 7pm by the time I got home. That was Wednesday.

Today. Shrivenham. By road.

Only 60 miles from home, not brilliant roads but hopefully not too busy if I left early enough. I had to be there for 9am, so thought I'd allow 2 hours. Just in case of delays.

In the event, I was out of the house and scraping ice off the car at 0645. Gah.

As I'd predicted, the roads were full of large, slow lorries, all doing between 30 and 40mph, with nowhere to overtake, so I was glad I allowed plenty of time. Got there by 0815, cup of tea, nice and relaxed, hurrah hurrah hurrah.

Left at 5, and thought "I'll go home the same way I came this morning. It was nice and straightforward."

What a FOOL I was.

The police had closed a road just as I came off the M4, so I sat (along with about 5000 other people) in an ant-speed** queue, winding down a tiny back road for an hour. Got home at 7pm again, seething.

Other news: Mr WithaY had his exam today and is very pleased. He said he could answer all the questions, and didn't run out of time. Results in a couple of months. We went to the pub for dinner to celebrate.

Also. Kevin the Decorator is going great guns on the downstairs loo.

I came home tonight to find the toilet cistern on the front lawn. I assume he will put it back at some point, and wasn't just having a rock star moment.







*He waved at me, trying to attract my attention without disturbing me. How British.

**An ant with several broken legs. Carrying a huge suitcase.

Decorator II - the Developments

Hurrah! Kevin the Decorator is coming round early tomorrow to make a start on our downstairs loo. Excellent.

I will be out of the house well before he shows up as I have to be in Central London by 1000 which means a bloody early train.

Other news: Curtain fabric samples arrived today. Two sets, no idea why. I might make some very tiny cushions.

John Lewis. Can't fault their fabric sample delivery system.

Decorating

The morning started off slightly bizarrely.

Kevin the Decorator turned up unnanounced at 8am to measure up for a job we asked him to do ages ago. He said his dad had promised to call me to tell me to expect KtD this morning. Perhaps he'll ring later tonight.

Not a big deal in itself as I was up, not naked, didn't have wet hair and was halfway through breakfast when he rang the doorbell.

KtD was hacked off though. He left (after measuring and listening to what I want doing), muttering "Dad's always doing this to me. I'll kill him." Heh.

So, with any luck our downstairs loo with be made lovely before our mates from the States arrive, which would be great. It'll be a longer job than I'd hoped though. KtD scraped a bit of the hideous lumpy wallpaper off the ceiling in there and announced that there was no plaster underneath, just plasterboard.

Some fuckwit just stuck horrible wallpaper onto bare plasterboard. No wonder it looks so dreadful.

Not as bad as our last house which had expanded polystyrene ceiling tiles all over the place (well, on the ceilings, anyway). When we took them down we found extensive gaps and holes in the ceiling where internal walls had been demolished.

The kitchen, particularly memorably, had an old packing crate as part of the ceiling. Nice.

Taking the tiles down was tough in places too. They'd run out of the correct adhesive halfway through one room and used (we think) lino glue to attach them. We chiselled those buggers off inch by inch. Gah.

And people wonder why we pay qualified and experienced professional tradesmen to come and do stuff in the house for us.

Other news: There had been an accident on the way to work, so the road was closed, leading to massive holdups and tailbacks. Added half an hour to my commute, which I could have done without.

There was a very bored (and very young looking) policeman sitting in his car with all the lights going, blocking the road. He gave the impression that he'd already been there far too long.

Also. Watched "Bulletproof Monk" on TV last nght. Heh. I love films like that.

Off to London tomorrow. Can't wait. More train travel and tiresome pointless meetings. Marvellous.

No one thing

Have had a constructive morning in the office, with a cheerful impromptu team meeting over a drink of hot chocolate, which is always a bonus.

Drove to work in a complete daze, which I only realized when I got to the site and hadn't got my pass out of my bag (plan ahead, that's my motto). The chap on the gate watched me rummaging in my bag for a while, then quite obviously just gave up and waved at me to carry on through. I ignored his waving and sat there until I had found my pass, determined to show it to him.

And it was at that point I realised that I didn't remember much of the drive in. No idea why, as I slept quite well and feel less gloomy and despondant than I have done for a few days.

I had a couple of colleagues a few years ago who ran a "Bizarrest Pass" contest. Each week they both had to try and get into work by waving something at the security blokes that was NOT their pass.

They used library cards, credit cards, driving licenses, bits of paper, you get the picture. The winner was declared on the day that one of them was waved through after presenting a bit of toast with Marmite on.

That was a great office to work in. I still have photos of our "Thickie of the Week" sign we used to award to whoever had done the stupidest thing that week. We told our boss it was a teambuilding thing.

He was ok with that, but when we also created the "Finger of Blame" - a cardboard hand, pointing a finger at whoever was being blamed by the rest of the team - he got a bit suspicous and told us to take it down. He didn't like the sign on the filing cabinet that said "Toy Cupboard" either. Tch.

I put the curtains back up in the spare room last night, and will dust and polish all the furniture when I get home, and restock the Gothic bookcase. It looks great in there. Kevin the decorator is a prince among men.

My WithaY sent me a text saying he'll be home by "eightish - in time for the pub". Excellent.

I am sat at my desk, and was just wondering what the odd smell in the office is. I realised that it is now pissing down with rain and I can smell wet concrete from the road outside. It's been so long that I'd forgotten what it smells like.

Mmmm. Summer.

Marvellous

Got home from work this evening, and not only has the marvellous Kevin the decorator finished all the painting, but he had also put the rug down, put the furniture back and reassembled the bed.

How great is he? Bloody great.

All I need to do is put the curtains back up and make up the bed and the room is finished. I could weep for joy.

To be honest, I could weep full stop, but I am going to go to bed in a minute and see if a good night's sleep will make me feel a bit less woeful in the morning.

And the lovely Mr WithaY returns from his Grand Tour of Scotland tomorrow so I hope we can have a nice weekend together. Got mates coming over for dinner on Saturday night so I need to start planning what we'll feed them.

Bit the bullet and went to the bloody supermarket after work. Gah. But, done for a bit so am smug now.

Chaos theory

I am at my desk for the first time in what feels like ages (Friday last week, in reality.) I am having a frankly mental morning, as I am out of the office from this afternoon until next Monday and it seems as though the world and his dog all want to have "just five minutes" to tell me stuff, ask me stuff and try to give me more work to do.

I am dealing with this by listening to the people who want to tell me stuff, answering the people who ask me stuff and completely ignoring the poor fools who are trying to give me more work. Seems to be a sound approach so far.

The Grand Office Move continues to cause ructions for a lot of the team. Me and my colleague are all right (Jack), because we are unaffected as yet, but the rest of the guys are disgruntled. They came in this morning to find that the accommodation is very cramped, they've been put in the corner they explicitly asked NOT to be in, the lockable cupboards and desk pedestals don't, and most of the chairs are broken. Understandably, they are hacked off.

It is frustrating because there is nothing I can do about it, really. The building Facilities Manager is involved. She is the only person who can get them different furniture, all I could do would be to raise the ante by asking piercing questions in a Lady Bracknell voice. Which I don't believe would be very helpful.

This morning leaving the house was a complete nightmare. For some reason everything felt hugely complicated. In hindsight of course, it wasn't really, but at the time it seemed that way.

Jim and I said our goodbyes last night (he's not a morning person); he plans to move out on Tuesday to go and stay with our mates in Gloucestershire until he can get some work and find a house.

He's been shafted by the change of direction on this HIPS thing. He was lining up work from the beginning of this month but now it won't happen till August, and only 18% of the market will be affected so his projected income has been slashed dramatically. He's planning on finding some temporary job in the interim to keep him afloat until the Government gets its bloody act together.

The decorator should be coming in this week, but he is not sure when exactly, so I have cleared the bathroom out, left the right paint in there (a charming ochre colour, slightly paler than what is in there at the moment) with a little note with my mobile number on it, and am hoping for the best. It all depends on when he finishes his "outdoor job", which will depend on the weather. If it rains, he'll be with me earlier.

I watered all the plants and moved them off the windowledge so hopefully they won't die while I'm away.

I had to make sure all the bins were emptied, the compost bucket thingy was emptied and all the perishable food was out of the fridge, or I'll be coming home on Friday to a hideous stench-filled pit. I also had to make sure I switched everything off that needed to be off, as Jim is not good at this, and would probably leave everything on rather than risk turning off the wrong thing. Fair enough, I suppose.

I drove in to the office with that "what have I forgotten" feeling. I daresay it will become apparent in due course.

Oh, and I managed to wang Mr WithaY's Landrover into our garage door yesterday. I don't think it's very damaged, but it is definitely not quite right. The door, I mean. The Landrover is fine, I didn;t even dislodge any of the accreted crud off the bull bars.

I was shuffling the cars about on the drive, which entailed driving his onto the road, leaving it there, driving mine off the drive, putting Mr WithaY's back on the drive, then putting mine on behind it. His car has a much longer bonnet than mine, plus the bull bars and I misjudged the distance between his car and the garage. There was a resounding "thung" noise, the door got nastily skewed and I sat there thinking "bollocks".

Ah well. Maybe I can fix it before he gets home. I think we have a sledgehammer somewhere.