We may be making some headway...

The newly painted attic room

By Friday this week I was ready to hang "Sprinkler man" from his own pipework. Despite numerous telephone calls and emails from me, and promises of responses by various of his employees, "the man" remained obstinately silent. So, Friday was my D Day. I telephoned asking for the man. I received the now familiar response of "I'll see if he is available" (which translated means I know he doesn't want to speak to you, but I have to check for today's excuse). After some considerable time on hold I was asked if I was telephoning to arrange a planner to visit site. My response that it was the latest in a long line of requests was lost on the receptionist, or ignored, and I was told that a planner could come next week. "Monday it is then" I said, and this was agreed. So, in theory, Angela is due with me at Brookvale at 10.30 on Monday to survey what we have and then propose the complete solution. Why such a simple response couldn't have been put in place three weeks ago is a mystery. Presumably Angela will be expecting to meet some crabby old git called Roger. Probably not far wrong there as my patience with this outfit is exhausted!
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Yet more rubbish service from the water cutting specialist. Having promised me that the tiles would be cut and ready last Monday, I was told when I telephoned that they hadn't been done but would be ready on Wednesday. So, on phoning on Thursday morning and told by the second in command that they hadn't even been started and wouldn't be until Friday, had me twitching. Having insisted that they be started immediately, and been promised that they would be, I received a call from the main man. "We're very busy; machine loaded for another job; can't take it off; been working for 48 hours without sleep; have a current wife, two ex-wives, and eighteen children, to feed". (actually, the last one's fiction, but you get the point). Translated, this equates to "I'm rubbish at estimating; I take no notice of what people say when asking for completion dates; I would prefer to be doing anything else but talking to you at the moment".
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As I hadn't heard from the stove company that our wood burner had arrived from Denmark I agreed to a slip of the delivery date for the tiles to Monday next. Hardly had I put the phone down to the tile cutter when the stove company phoned to say that the wood burner was now in stock and ready to be fitted. I sincerely hope that the tile cutter meets his latest deadline otherwise he'll join the sprinkler man on the pipework. Jan has a different approach to me - she would line up along the Great wall of China the various people who have given us grief. There they would be unceremoniously shot. Not overly subtle, but I can see her point!
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With the cancellation of our trip to France we have managed to complete a number of jobs "on the list". The attic room is now all but finished as Jan and I gave it a couple of coats of white emulsion, and so too is the bedroom ceiling - a daunting task for one, but we worked side by side and managed to cover the whole ceiling in two hours this afternoon. Jan then busied herself cleaning up whilst I filled in a number of holes where the plaster had popped, and touched up the paint here and there. We've noticed something rather odd about white emulsion paint - the standard white Dulux paint we used in the attic room is actually far whiter than Homebase's Brilliant white. The difference between the living room ceiling and the attic room is quite pronounced. Am I going to do anything about it? - NO!
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Andy the electrician appeared on Saturday and has nearly finished the attic room, but we appear to have over ordered some items and not ordered enough of others, so we are short a telephone master socket and a 2 gang electrical socket which I need to order from Screwfix tomorrow. Once I receive these items Andy has promised to come back and finish off, as well as providing the all-important certificate for the building inspector.
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And so tomorrow should see our sprinkler lady appear - a situation I'll believe when I see it. I should also hear from Tile man too - I wonder if I will?

Jan & Rog