Will O the Wisp appears!

Radiators installed

The lounge - now whiter than white!

Had I bet on Darren appearing on Wednesday as promised, I would have lost my bet. He appeared instead one day early, on Tuesday at 08.00, complete with father Don, and apprentice Dave. We'll call them the 3Ds from now on. In a very short time the 3Ds had fitted the radiators and towel rails, connected them up to copper pipe, and lagged the piping. By 14.00 they'd gone although they had to return to run the hot and cold pipes and waste pipe for the shower. Promising to return on Friday Darren disappeared again. True to his word, on Friday he returned to carry out the remaining work. Unfortunately, the radiator for the shower room had originally been the wrong size and the replacement not yet delivered, so the pipework for it has been laid in anyway. Hopefully, the radiator and the pipework will line up....... Just as a precaution, I've covered the rads with their packaging as men with wheelbarrows, shovels, et al who will be laying the screed floor, may not be the most careful.
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Roy's boys - Matt and Ian - were back at site on Thursday and Friday - this time to lay the kerb edging by our garden and the lay the foundations for the porch floor. By Friday night the kerb was complete, and quite a large area of the drive adjacent to the new kerb had been concreted to fill in the holes in the widened part of the drive. Matt also laid the plastic sheeting that forms the membrane over the block floor, onto which the insulation and screed is laid. Clive from AFT Flooring has confirmed that his team will be on site on Tuesday next week to carry out this work. So, by the end of the week we will be walking on the new floor.
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Andy the electrician turned up on Friday to answer a few questions, and he is to provide a schedule of fittings required (for me to order) so that we can get the electrics installed. He's also borrowed an LED light fitting for us to try out as the method of calibrating lights with low energy, halogen or LED bulbs, bears no relationship to the rating of incandescent bulbs so its difficult to judge just how much light will be given by each. Switching the LED fitting on in the dark should show us what to expect. Whilst LED bulbs are much more expensive (£25 each I'm told) they last for 20,000 hours.
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I had booked a week's leave to get on with decorating and arranged for Jewsons to deliver a scaffold tower to enable me to reach the lounge ceiling. This was waiting for me on Monday morning as I arrived at 08.15 and following my Ramses II toilet walking project, I proceeded to to do an Isambard Kingdom England on the scaffold tower. Despite being made of aluminium, some bits were rather heavy. Still, by various means I managed to erect this edifice complete with stabilisers, and by Wednesday had finished the ceiling in brilliant white. Dismantling the tower was almost as difficult as erecting it, but eventually I was able to call Jewsons to collect it. I'm not sure when we'll be decorating the lounge ceiling again, but I can guarantee that it won't be me that does it!
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Roy had arranged to remove (buy!) most of the "stuff" that Jan and I had placed near the garage - 450 engineering bricks, 4 panels of Hares safety fence plus various boards. That made way for yet another skip which we asked to be placed in front of the utility room. Some of you may remember the TV program "The Rise and Fall of Reggie Perrin". Reggie Perrin would tell his boss, CJ, that he was available for a meeting on a specific morning or afternoon. CJ would always respond with a date/time that was not one of those offered. I suspect that the skip driver is a latter day CJ as the skip was left by the garage and right in the way of normal parking or access to the back door of the house. With help from Matt and Ian we managed to push it nearer the garage, as getting to the location we originally wanted was impossible. The arrival of the skip meant a tour of the garage, house and garden to collect various odds and ends. By the end of the day the skip was half full again.
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At the end of the week I had managed to finish the ceilings in the lounge, kitchen, and hall, as well as the remaining walls in the lounge, but as suspected, I required a session with the osteopath to try to unknot various muscles that had objected to intense activity after years of nothing more than keyboard exercises. (I've got very strong fingers though).

During the week we heard from David Kirkpatrick at Loline Interiors. He had managed to reduce the kitchen quote to below the budget we set so we went back to him today to confirm the details and placed the order. Just got to decide on the worktop material/colour now. The start date for fitting the kitchen is now 4th May.
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With the general progress that has been made we needed to start making plans for the internal doors, skirting, and architrave to be fitted. I telephoned Pete Brooks (who had done such an excellent job on the roof timbers) to ask if he would like to quote. I was surprised to hear that he had taken a full time job as a foreman on a site in Watford and so wasn't available for the work. Pete said he would let us know of another chippy who he would recommend. Both Jan and I were very disappointed at this news, but could quite understand the shrinking of the building trade and the effect it must have had on many tradesmen. So Pete taking a permanent job was his only option when work dried up. However, the next day, Pete 'phoned back to say that he and his son Lee had so much enjoyed working on Wee House that he felt the pair of them could help during some time off that they would have in April. That will suit us ideally as it will give time to order the oak skirting and architrave, as well as the Pisces and Virgo internal doors.
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With the end of the hedge planting season approaching (end of March) we decided that it was time we sorted out the hedging; the planners having been quite strict in terms of their requirements. So off we went to Buckingham Nurseries today (the best in the area for hedges) to see what they offered. Within 30 minutes, we had agreed to buy 125 mixed native hedges (Quickthorn, Alder Buckthorn, Blackthorn, Field Maple and Spindle, Dog Rose, Dogwood, Guelder Rose, Hazel, and Sweet Briar Rose). This is to be planted along the boundary with our neighbour's contentious cart track, and to the front of the property up to the porch. We also asked if Buckingham Nurseries could plant the hedges too, but it seemed that they couldn't do so as we were a little far away. However, a sudden change of heart and two options appeared. An older member of staff did planting in his spare time but couldn't do anything for over 6 weeks - leaving it well outside the planting time. Enter stage right - Adam. Adam works for a landscaping company as his day job and for Buckingham Nurseries at the weekend. He also does private work too. Suffice it to say that Adam is built for manual work insofar that his neck is twice the diameter of his head, and his shoulders are sufficiently broad to carry at least one telegraph pole on his own! He has promised that he will plant our hedge - all 125 plants - in 3 hours. This I have got to see, but watching him at work today, I have little doubt that he will do it.
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Jan and I will be at Wee House tomorrow, this time to do gardening as the drier weather has started some shrinkage of the turfs, so our local nursery - Savins - should come to the rescue for some suitable infill material as they're only a couple of doors down the road from Wee House. I'll be doing some sample digging to see what the ground is like where Adam is to perform. Can't have him breaking into a sweat, can we?
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Jan & Rog