I just want my space back

We've been a bit lax of late taking photos when we're out, so we've no photos of Chateaubriand with Donna and Keith, none of Mark and Fiona's BBQ and no Kurzi lamb on Sunday Tea Club. This was the only 'social' photo taken at the Weighbridge pub while we were waiting for others to join us. Hey-ho!

I know, some people are never happy, but now we’ve got the people in, I just want them to go! Anthony turned up bright and early on Monday morning and ripped out the kitchen, with the assistance of his tame gas man and his tame electrician. Tuesday was for the plasterer only he didn’t show. You can imagine how we felt, and of course there was no point in Anthony coming till he’d been so we were a day behind. Different plasterer did come on Wednesday, so I could breathe again. We packed him off and went to Abi’s, I’d been planning our meals out for this week! Brian rehung a door for her that her hapless decorator had taken off before she had thrown him out after he had done more harm than good. We had a pleasant meal out at the Old Moseley Arms, though it was nothing special. It’s all about the company.

Instead we have lots of photos like these! Look, no kitchen. The kitchen fitter has been and ripped out the old kitchen and the electrician has done his stuff. What amazes me these days is the way electrics are done. No channeling out walls vertically above or below an outlet so you have an idea where the wires go if drilling into walls in the future and no metal capping over the cable so you may feel a slight resistance when drilling before hitting the cable. These days, us too since we've had the latest consumer unit (fuse box) with individual RCD's and surge protection device, they say it's impossible to get electrocuted if you do drill or hammer a nail through a cable, it'll immediately trip out. That's all very well, but you still have to rip out the wall to replace the cable you've damaged. Wouldn't it be better to still run cables vertically and protect them with capping?

Thursday Anthony was back and got on like a house on fire. He even left a little early which meant we could repaint the bit of ceiling that the plasterer had gone over on to. Fortunately it didn’t take long as we were out again, down to Donna and Keith, to catch up with them and Cookie and Cracker, and take advantage of the Chateaubriand special at their local pub. We had a lovely evening, though I may have had a glass of wine too many, but we’ve had a lot going on!

After plastering (what a mess plastering makes!). Washing up in the bath during this

Friday was all go. Not only was Anthony in the kitchen but Darren was in the garden. He was correcting Simon’s mistakes and finishing the retaining wall in order to start laying patio slabs on Saturday. Saturday again was full on, though was actually worse, Anthony with his radio indoors, cutting and routing work surface, while Darren and his man were outside with their radio, whacker plate and then cutting slabs. Dust noise, nightmare! We were out again, a BBQ at Mark and Fiona’s which was lovely, again, just to get out, though now at least we could wash up without having to use the bath!

New units going in, but no surfaces yet so still washing up in the bath! Can you see the cement mixer through the window? That'll be the patio man working outside at the same time

Sunday, Darren and mate were back, so we saw them in and drove down to Chippenham to collect a table and 4 chairs that I’d bought from Facebook. It is just what we wanted, small and round, but extending, in case we have guests. Just to make a change, we were out Sunday Tea club came to us, Manu, Crystal and Reuben came down on the train to go to our Indian for the Kurzi lamb that has to be ordered 24 hours in advance to marinate and slow cook, lovely to see them and have tea club in the village.

Nearly finished. Just need a new fridge to fill that gap and some flooring (ordered and scheduled to be fitted on 2nd September)

I started this over a week ago, but it’s been absolutely crazy.

We’ve done loads of work in the garden, though we do need a few more bags of 40mm plum slate chippings. You’d think this would be easy, but all 40mm seems to mean is bigger than 20mm but anything up to 100mm! We do only need a few small bags, not the huge amount Brian thought we needed, after I shifted his distribution about! The patio is now finished, hurrah, though he has left some marks on it so I’ve ordered some magic fluid which will hopefully make it beautiful. Then we’ll be pleased with it. The patio furniture is out on it, but even putting that up wasn’t easy. When Brian opened the box he said someone had built it before. We suspect they didn’t build all of it before, just enough to cross thread one of the bolts and decide they’d stuffed it and sawn it off! Fortunately Brian is better than whoever they are and drilled it out and found a replacement and all is good. We sat and had a well deserved bottle of fizz on it while I nursed what I was convinced was a broken toe. I bled it and despite lots of bruising it’s remarkably good.

Onto the back garden and this was the patio at the end of July as our original man left it for weeks on end, all materials stacked up beyond

The kitchen is virtually done, though we took what appears to be a huge delivery today, it looks like they’ve sent a whole cabinet when all I wanted was the upright in the middle that the doors close against! Anthony is back tomorrow to hopefully deal with all the snagging. We’ve done all the painting, which we are very happy with, though Brian took a lot of convincing about the colour! The cupboards are full which took longer than it would for most people. It wasn’t just a case of putting back what came out as we had been and got all our kitchen stuff from Helen and Ian’s loft where it has been in storage for the last 12 years! There was a lot more there than I remembered! It took all day to go through, select what we were keeping and take the excess to the charity shop. We picked New Starts where in theory if you suddenly find yourself with nothing , ie you have just got out of jail, or been thrown out of the marital home you can go and they will give you a ‘starter pack’. I think we gave enough stuff for three people to have a whole kitchen! We didn’t give them the bottles of champagne and single malt whisky that I found though! The electrician came and replaced the distribution board, so we are up with all the regulations, though goodness me, he could talk. The flooring has finally been ordered after 2 visits, the splash back is on order, the new internal door has arrived and I think we are nearly there.

Darren, our new contractor arrives, incorrect walls knocked down and new brickwork done

We haven’t had such a social week this week, though did have a lovely evening with Rob and Alex on Sunday. Collecting from H&I they were lovely enough to invite us for dinner, and Mark and Fiona from Monday Club popped over last Monday to see ongoing progress which was also lovely. We haven’t even made it to the pub on a Sunday or Wednesday, except once, since we got back from the Dolomites. Oh for a rest!

Slab laying starting

As I said at the end of the last blog we are going to stop posting on Facebook, so if you would like to be added to the distribution list, please just let us know.

There's no stopping these boys

Nearly done

At last we can use it!

From higher up the garden

And this is a 'before' photo. We like the improvement and it'll be even better once we've got plants in

Higher up showing Jackie's artistic work. The pink wavy path re-used the slabs in the photo above

Geraldine the giraffe's wild flower bed (wild flowers a bit sparse until next year)

Jackie is practicing stone creation on the top patio

Her stone creation will be over there, down the side by the vine and up under the blue pot and past the climbing rose on the arch. She's out there now clearing the slate chippings back and is about to start. I need to go and help...

We've utterly bored you to death with our garden and kitchen, but it mostly done now apart, so there'll be more social and adventures in future blogs

Back to the UK and full speed ahead

Enjoying a late evening summer drink in John's garden with Helen and Richard. They are normally our bird identifiers when we're travelling and haven't a clue what we've photographed, so it's nice to have a photo of them

We’ve now been back from Italy, nearly a fortnight, and it’s over a month since the last ‘home’ blog, and guess what? We still HAVEN’T got a patio! I couldn’t write before we went away, as I think Simon was reading the blog. He worked one day before we went away, and we’d decided enough was enough and we’d found someone else. Darren, man number 2, who had been round, pointed out the errors that Simon had made, but had agreed to finish the job. Obviously we didn’t want to tell Simon this just before we went away so we just told him to tidy up and take all his stuff away. Take the opportunity in the fortnight to get himself together, sort his head out. That sort of thing. He looked so relieved to have some time, and was so grateful for our understanding and patience, told Brian he was going to bring me flowers (that’s why I assumed he’d read the blog) and that he would do a fantastic job for us that we both relented. Told him to be here on the 24th, the day after we got back, and finish the job. Man number 2 obviously wasn’t very impressed and thought we were nuts, as did everyone else we told, but we felt happy in ourselves.

I went for a Parkrun at Arrow Valley park in Redditch last Saturday for the second week running and, believe it or not, I finished both in exactly the same time, to the second. 27min 54sec, not amazing but at least I'm consistent! Saw old friend Mike there last week, he was disappointed that he hadn't broken 20 minutes! The leader this week did in just over 15 minutes and apparently the Olympic record for 5000m is something over 12 minutes - they could have done it more than twice over in the time it took me! This is looking across the lake and, on the other side near the right you might just be able to see the runners at the pre run meeting. It's a pleasant location, pretty flat and all on tarmac, so no muddy bits to deal with

So, back from Italy to find tarpaulin and board taking half the drive for the sand delivery, which arrived, on the 24th, but no Simon. Or the rest of that week, or Monday. We begged him on Monday evening to be here Tuesday, and got an affirmative, as we had for Friday and Monday, but another no show. We went back to man number 2, grovelled a bit, got a date of the 12th from him, so told Simon he was off the job. “But I’m coming tomorrow, I told you this at 16.45, how can you do this to me?” We ended up that night turning our phones off with messenger messages, WhatsApp messages and text messages all saying that he was turning up, we had to let him in, he’d done all the hard work, he needed the money…… As you can imagine, Wednesday morning we were both a little tense, till finally he messaged that he wasn’t coming though he would have been there, and through till it was finished and that we were really unjust and unfair. The fact that he’d never made more than 2 consecutive days and had made promise after promise seemed to escape him.

Jackie on the phone to Wickes who told her 'no, you won't be getting your delivery today' despite the fact that here it is, delivered by a third party courier. That's all our stuff in the back of there, has he done a cross-country event before arriving here? Will it all be undamaged? Who knows, but the nice man a Wickes said don't worry, any damage units will be replaced - hope so!

Apart from all that which has been incredibly draining, lack of sleep inducing and stressful we’ve slotted right back in. We now have full fibre broadband, so no telephone line. The car has been MOT’d and serviced , in that order, which isn’t the most logical. We’ve both been to our respective dentists, hopefully for the last time, as the dentist in the village was taking on clients which will be much more convenient. Brian was still driving over to Leamington for his!

Well, it's in the house, now we can't move!

We’ve had curry with Helen and Ian in Stirchley, and curry with Helen and Richard in the village. We’ve also had a long lunch with Terry and Sue as we do once or twice a year. We have mostly been eating in though, which is good, as next week we probably won’t be. The kitchen fitting starts on Monday! Wickes are very organised, you have a kitchen experience manager and lots of texts, that tell you to watch this 2 minute video of what to expect on delivery day and how you can make it all go smoothly. I’d dutifully watched, and received many texts saying delivery would be between 07.00-18.00 not particularly helpful, but click on this link to track your delivery. That never worked. Then one that said it would be between 10.30-14.30, better. At 10.30 I got a text saying it would be 11.30, ok, that’s good. At 12.30 I rang to say it wasn’t here yet. He had no information to give me, but was sure it was on its way. At 14.30 I rang again to be told that hmm, maybe it was on the lorry that had broken down, but not to worry, he’d call in some favours and it would be couriered on Monday. “So, we can go out then.” I asked. I’ll just put you on hold and check. While the music was playing a grey transit van turned up with the epitome of ‘white van man’ courier driver. The extractor hood was bouncing around in the back, and the very large man was standing on our work surface lying in the back of the van. The customer assistant came back on the phone, saying, no, you won’t be getting a delivery, to which I replied that I thought we were. He didn’t recognise the registration plate, but I had to go. To try and stop the man literally throwing things around in the kitchen. If it’s all here, and in one piece it will be an absolute miracle, but that’s the fitters first job tomorrow to inventory and for Wickes to replace anything that needs it!

Now the small job of emptying the old kitchen ready for the work to commence tomorrow

After feeling that Simon was reading the blog, and after news items about home insurance companies and people posting on social media, we have decided that we won’t be putting many more blogs on Facebook. We would still welcome our friends to read it, but you will either have to go to the URL, which is shown on the Facebook link, or drop us a message and we’ll add your email addresses to the distribution list so you get alerted when we published a new blog.