Another Lifetime to go

17th April 2019

It is inspection time at the house. Kelli was on-hand to observe the proceedings. It was a three hour ordeal where the inspector checked everything, and issued a fully illustrated report.

There were a number of “maintenance” items identified, but the more alarming issue he raised concerned the heating and cooling system. This property has grills in the floor where the hot or cold air is forced through.

The inspector noted that the floor grills were not connected to the furnace by any form of ducting. There was a deep intake of breath, first by Kelli, and then by me. “Shouldn’t be expensive” he said, but Kelli’s finger was already on the phone. After a bit of in-depth research she found that the style of house we were buying was designed that way. A Berm house has an earth bank up against the walls giving the appearance of being slightly submerged. The hot air circulates in the crawl space under the floor and rises through the floor grills. Neither the Realtor or the inspector knew this, so Kelli took great pleasure in sending them a picture of the principle.

16th April 2019

The car park at Ikea was remarkably empty, my list was long, and my expectation high.

I bought my friend Rob, as he had a list also.

As we started round the maze, we decided that breakfast should be the first on the list.

I wanted to buy a two seater settee, but I fell at the first fence. The upholstery fabric I had chosen was new, and therefore not in stock. I was given no indication when it would be available, which was a little annoying.

However the rest of the things I needed were available and loaded onto the trolley. On the way out we stopped to sample a vegetarian hot dog, not the worst thing I had tasted, but not the best either.

Getting back to the house I had to get all my purchases up the slope, including the heavily compressed mattress. Once released from its restraints it exploded, and started its seventy-two hour normalisation period, by which it gets to its working thickness. This so-called memory foam should in fact always return to its rolled up form if it was good at remembering.

15th April 2019

The gravel for the path turned up at 10.30pm. Twenty bags of Romsey Red was off-loaded on to the pavement. The tasks of getting it up the slope was another exhausting slog, but luckily Nicola was on hand to help. She had spent most of the morning building the beds and raking over the soil whilst I finished attaching the sleepers to the stone steps.

The timber was difficult to drill, draining the battery two or three times before everything was fixed down.

I managed to lay half the bags of gravel on the path. It so disconcerting to drag a heavy bag to a place on the path, cut open the bag, and tip the contents into a very small pile resembling a cow pat.

14th April 2019

I had a day off from hard graft, and drove down to Barrington to see Nicola and Colin.

I loaded the truck with more books to donate.

I did notice that their bookcase had some of my old donations on the shelves.

13th April 2019

I made the mistake of going to Wickes after 10.00am because the place was crawling with part- time DIYers. All the carts had gone, I waited around for a while hoping to grab one as soon as it became available, but there were others waiting with the same objective.

Feeling frustrated, I left, intending to return later when it was quieter.

I met up with my Art School chums for a coffee and a chat.

After that I headed back to Wickes to hopefully purchase some ballast. Things looked promising, there were plenty of carts, but the stack of ballast had dwindled to five bags which was just the quantity I wanted. There were other, but the bags had split, and other customers had set them aside.

I had a good stash of bags ready to finish the path and steps.

12th April 2019

Today was a good day. I held my new grandson, George for the first time, he was so small and chilled out, not a trouble in the world. His elder brother Ethan, doesn’t really know what’s happening, but it will be great to see them both grow together.

Next it was Ryan’s birthday, the real one.

The other fantastic news is that we bought a house. It is right next door to the one we live in now. The previous owner Lynn, had died a few weeks ago, and his family wanted to settle his affairs quickly, so without it even going on the market, our offer was accepted.

Now starts another chapter in our lives.

Kelli had already started decorating it in her head, but we didn’t want to get too excited just in case, she would have been devastated it we couldn’t get it.

So by the end of April we will get the keys and a month to get it how we want it. Ironic that I finish one house referb and start all over again on a new one, plus keeping the business going.

By the end of the evening Kelli had chosen all the paint colours, and sourced new light fixtures, if only doing all the decorating jobs could be that easy.

11th April 2019

I started off by wishing my son Ryan a happy Birthday, which was dumb because it is tomorrow,which he was at pains to tell me.

If that hadn’t convinced him I’m going doo-dally then nothing will.

I dropped the Shogun into the garage for a service. I had a phone call later informing me that it had only done a couple of thousand miles since the last one, so didn’t need anything doing. There were a few sensors that needed attention but at £142 each I said I’ll make another appointment for that.

It looks like we’re another step closer to buying a house in the US. The neighbour’s family who had recently died, needed to sell the house quickly. This was our opportunity to get the place of our own in the area that we wanted, and, we would only have to carry the furniture a few feet, perfect.

I finished filling the gabions. I was talking to a local chap who offered me stones that had been taken from an old wall. These has been stacked up against a wall for about ten years. I jumped at this free offer, and there was more than enough to finish the job.

10th April 2019

My friend Dave came over to help me fix an old reel to reel tape recorder. I had to forgo my garden work. The machine was one I had bought in 1979 from Dixon’s in Weston Super Mare. A few years ago I had replaced all the rubber belts, but some felt pads fell off the pause device and I tried an alternative material but that didn’t work. I had mentioned it to Dave a couple of weeks back, and he was keen to have a go at fixing it. The trouble was. I had forgotten what the problem was until we went through each part checking how it functioned then it all came back to me. Finally we removed the pause function link and found the pads I had fitted had been destroyed. Dave was over the moon at identifying the fault whilst I was embarrassed at using the wrong material.

Later I attempted to build one of the gabions, thankfully it was quite a simple job.

9th April 2019

Today is Kelli’s birthday, and also the birth of my latest Grandson, George Edison, quite a day and it only just started.

I managed to get six more bags of ballast, and a panic attack. I still have so much to do, and I am not sure I will get done before I head back to the US.

I try to set out my daily tasks everyday, but often I find other jobs that I had forgotten about, that have to added to the list.

I have very little things to do in the house, I have now finished the bed frame, I have one small piece of skirting that has to be painted and fitted, and caulking in the bedroom.

I have to get more ballast every day, and then I have to get the top layer of Romney Red to finish the path.

At the end of each day I am exhausted, I get a shower, and that revitalises me ready for the next day.

I had to drive to some place in the wildness of wiltshire to collect the gabions.

It was in a village called Clyffe Pypard.

The name itself looked like a spelling mistake, or somewhere deep in Wales.

I pulled into a large yard littered with piles of gabion grids, in one corner was a wooden shed, which must have been mission control.

It took all of five minutes to load my order into the truck, and then I was back on the road.

8th April 2019

An early morning trip to the tip to dump some large stones, then on to Wickes for more ballast. I also bought some armour cable to bury in the ground to supply the shed with power. That was some serious stuff, weight a lot and as stiff as a corpse.

So just as I have been covering the old path with soil, I have to dig it up again to sink the cable.

We are getting close to finding a house. The place next door has become available due to the passing of the guy that lived there.

Fortunately we had a friend who was working with the family to sell off the contents, she mentioned that we were interested. We heard that they had already listed it with a Realtor, so we were afraid that it would be sold right under our noses. We had our own Realtor who immediately contacted the family’s agent, to register our interest.