Author: peterb51

6th April 2018

Ordered the plasterboard to complete the kitchen and living room. This is due for delivery next Tuesday, hopefully it won’t rain.

The rest of the day was spent making templates for the window surround. This took me a couple of hours of trimming, checking, and re-checking till finally I was happy with it.

This has been the way things have been going, Andy moving like a hare, and I the tortoise.

I dropped the top on the Jag for the drive down to Blissford, it was exhilarating to feel the wind through my hair, blowing away the dust and depositing it on to the windscreen of the cars behind.

5th April 2018

Things were a little better today. Andy got on with the pipework, he agreed that was his priority. Next week it should start to ramp up with the builder coming in to board up and plaster.

I had to undo something I had done a week ago because I forgot to drill a hole for the waste pipe!! This was not as simple as it seemed as the universe had shifted slightly, and made the panels really difficult to remove, and then impossible to re-fit. However with a little bit of love, and a surform the problem was rectified.

4th April 2018

Again Andy wasn’t there today, this is such a drag, although it did allow me time to correct another issue that had been troubling me.

In the old days when they built houses there wasn’t the precision that there is today, they were built sort-of square. When the builders added the steels in the old kitchen fireplace they aligned them with the existing wall. When I checked this against the main wall there was a discrepancy of nearly two inches. Normally, that would be categorised as the character of the place, but not what I would put up with.

With a plank of wood and an electric saw, I managed to cut two long wedges, and keep my fingers, hurray!

3rd April 2018

Back on the road again, the drive back to Bradford on Avon was achieved on automatic. As I have done the trip so often, I rarely remember the journey. It is amusing that I still considered that Easter was different from other “working” days, I guess it is conditioning, and I will grow out of that.

I was a little annoyed that Andy was not working today, I emailed Louis, the builder, that I needed full time labour to meet my end of month deadline.

This affected my mood all day, just a simple job of removing a difficult screw sent me into a swearing rage. I had to calm myself down in order to re-work something the builder had done that I was not happy with.

At the end of the afternoon, I was back to my old cheery self.

2nd April 2018

So I joined the DIY crowd heading for the local B&Q, I needed polyurethane for the stair treads.

I got into the car, but it didn’t start. I was instructed to hold the key fob under the dashboard to start the engine, which I did, and it started. As I was out I would get a new battery then hopefully that would solve the problem. When I arrived at the store, the car wouldn’t lock, it kept beeping loudly, drawing attention from the other shoppers. I found the battery number from the handbook and went in search of the part. I had expected that it would be a special cell only sold through Jaguar costing a hundred pounds, but to my surprise I found it for only four quid for two. Now, the extra will be put in a safe place that I will instantly forget, and in another few years will have to buy another two.

1st April 2018

Easter Day does not hold any real relevance for me these days, I do not share the Christian beliefs, therefore do not share the guilt from the sins of the world. I learnt a long time ago that religion, like politics is a way of control. My belief is that we contain both the feelings of heaven and hell within our own minds, and boy I’ve experienced hell a few times in my life.

Heaven is to see the sun rise, and share it with my friends, it’s a simple belief, and one I can understand and one I can justify.

I used the day to sand down the stair treads that I brought down from the cottage, it was good to take them back to their natural colour, and get them ready for re-coating.

31st March 2018

A day to catch up with Family business. This was spending time with my grandson Ethan. He chats away, but it’s difficult to de-cypher, and he gets a little frustrated, but when he smiles, he melts my heart.

It gives me a good chance to catch up with Damian and see what other cars he’s bought. I decided to swap the cars over, so I left the Shogun with him, and took the Jag, wow that was a great drive back to Barrington.

30th March 2018

The rain continued, Good Friday sank under a deluge of water. Not even a tame pheasant tapping his beak against the glass door was enough to brighten things up. What can you do on a wet Friday? Answer, visit a garden centre.

29th March 2018

On my way to Interior Harmony I had a call from the Travis Perkins delivery man informing me that he had my bag of Vantex damp proofing compound. I asked him to take it up to the house, which he agreed to do. I then had my meeting with Linda. She adjusted the changes to the appliances, and hit me with the final total. This, I was still not comfortable with that number. There was a disproportionate installation charge, and if that could be addressed I would sign. Just then Leroy, the manager arrived breathless. I explained my concern, and he agreed to discuss it with the installation team.

I left them to it, and went to meet Ann H for a coffee at the Chelsea Road coffee shop. We shared stories about having our houses torn apart with building projects, although the scale is different both of us are at the mercy of the unknown issues that crop up, and can be solved with time and money.

I went back to the shop and Leroy announced that he had squeezed the quote down to the number that I had wanted, great!

After transferring half the money, I left for my next appointment.

I drove to Melksham to order the flooring and a fridge freezer. There was a sale at the store, and I ended up with a decent amount of in-store vouchers.

I got back to the house to finish one small job, I found the bag of sodden Vantex at the bottom of the path. I carried it up to the front door, unlocked, opened it, and as I walked in, the bottom of the bag gave way, and deposited the contents over my shoes. I cursed a little, this was bloody expensive stuff, so I looked around for a container to salvage what I could. After a clean-up, and a wipe down of my shoes, I called it a day and headed back to Barrington.

28th March 2018

So I missed a dental appointment, I had it listed in my phone, with an alarm, but it evaporated into the madness of plasterboard city.

I had set Andy a deadline to get the kitchen area boarded so that the Kitchen people could check the dimensions against the CAD drawings. We stuck the panels on the walls, tapping and kicking them into position.

Linda and Colin from Interior Harmony arrived in the afternoon to check the vital dimensions.

Colin was the fitter, whose job it is to make it perfect, so he meticulously checked everything. Fortunately it all checked out, all that was left was a few changes to the appliances which was planned for tomorrow.