My Grandad

Taking a break from the building project for a moment, I'm going to post a little piece about my Grandad. He died seven years ago this week and he was the finest man I've ever known.

He was a Yorkshire miner of humble beginnings who went down the pit at the age of 14 as a "Bevin boy". He worked his way up through self-education and sheer hard work to become a mining engineer with responsibility for several pits in the Worksop area. He married my Nana and raised two girls who he adored.

He was a keen footballer but he didn't like the way modern footballers conducted themselves. He was highly financially astute and had a deep understanding of investments. He voted Conservative.

He could build or fix anything. He loved ballet. He abhorred bad language. He was a very quiet man of absolute integrity. He was an excellent ballroom dancer. He had endless patience. He was utterly devoted to his wife and family.

I never heard him raise his voice in anger.

He was a true gentleman in every sense of the word. He was an enormous fan of this poem by Rudyard Kipling, and this is how he strived to live his life. He succeeded.

IF

If you can keep you head when all about you are losing theirs,
And blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait, and not be tired of waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies;
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, or talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoguhts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster,
and treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on a turn of pitch-and-toss;
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone;
And so hold on when there is nothing in you,
Except the will which says to them: "Hold on.";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute,
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Rudyard Kipling

Norman Hindley 1.3.1926 - 23.11.2003

Fatal floor (well, wall actually, but floor sounds better)

I take it back. Since I wittered on about the scarily short time frame, our builders have worked like Trojans, (although with less of a focus on equine siege weapons and more on actually getting the job done). They have put the glass in the windows, ripped out the rest of the kitchen, installed the steels, levelled the floor, put in the electrics, built a cloakroom (nearly), and built a pantry. In fact, so enthusiastic were they, that they even built an extra 30 cm of wall where we didn't need it. This was a BAD thing.

The wall that they built is the left hand side of the pantry, which is also the back wall of the cloakroom, and which supports one of the steels. It all came down to a miscommunication on the plans. We told Gavin that we wanted to put our washing machine, which is also a tumble dryer, into the pantry so Gavin wrote "washer/dryer" on the plans. Interpreting this to mean that we wanted to put both a washing machine and a separate tumble dryer in the pantry, Nick took it on his own initiative to increase the depth of the pantry by around 30cms so that they would both fit. Ed noticed the mistake as soon as he saw the wall, and brought up the issue with Gavin and Nick the next morning. Cue much swearing and gnashing of teeth, and frantic calls by Gavin to Optiplan to work out whether the kitchen would still fit in the space available. Optiplan said that it would, so Gavin and Nick set about convincing us that the mistake would actually benefit us by giving us a bigger pantry and cloakroom. As I was already concerned about the amount of "sitting area" we were going to have at the far end of the kitchen I took quite some convincing that they had done us a favour. They really really really didn't want to demolish the wall a it would mean taking out the steel and building a new padstone support for it. This would have undoubtedly delayed things beyond the critical point for the kitchen fitters and thrown everything into disarray.
As soon as the screed floor had dried enough for us to walk on it Ed and I were in there measuring things and marking them out with whatever we had to hand - chopsticks as it turned out. We decided that we could live with a slightly smaller kitchen, and that the pantry would benefit from being a little larger, given how much we're planning on putting in it, so we've allowed ourselves to be persuaded, but it was yet another bit of stress that we didn't need on top of the various issues that have beset us over the last few weeks.
One benefit of the problem is that I have convinced Ed that we do need to get the dining table that I identified. It is a 90cm table that doubles in size when extended, which is quite rare as most usually just have an extra panel of 30cm or so. I have compromised on the chairs though and we're going to keep the ones that we've got and I'll re-cover them.

We're coping relatively well without the kitchen, although microwave food doesn't really agree with me. Fortunately the girls get a good meal at school/nursery and Ed buys half of Sainsburys for lunch each day, so he's OK. The best thing we've discovered is Morrisons fish pie, which is actually quite tasty. The worst was Morrisons risotto, which was disgusting.

Our poor neighbours have really suffered while the demolition was going on, with Amy threatening suicide at one stage. Fortunately things have quietened down somewhat now, plus we took them some wine to apologise.

This weekend the plasterer will be in doing his thing, and the floor is supposed to be going in Monday, then the kitchen will be installed Wednesday. Hopefully...

I can't post any photos at the moment as the camera has run out of battery, but I will as soon as we manage to recharge it!

Day whatever...

Well, there has been somewhat of a hiatus in the blogging of the building project, which has cunningly coincided with a hiatus in the actual building. Last week I arranged for a short notice week off work to remove Josie and myself from the proposed kitchen-free situation. What a good idea, I thought. I arrived on the Isle of Wight as planned, but the week was scuppered by Millie requiring an emergency tooth extraction under general anaesthetic on the Friday, me needing root canal work, and the builders not actually doing a blinking thing due to the fact that the glass for the main windows wasn't ready. As twitter would put it #fail.

Still we survived at least, and the builders worked on Sunday to finally rip the kitchen out by the roots, just in time for us to get back from the Isle of Wight, where we'd had to go to get Josie who had been left there for the duration of Millie's operation... confused yet? I was.

Yesterday and today (Tuesday) the builders have worked as if the full fury of my mother-in-law was snapping at their heels (in case they were wondering, it is). A text from my neighbour earlier today threatened that if she was driven to suicide due to the noise it would be all our fault. I feel guilty. But pleased that we are finally getting somewhere. Nick the builder did pop round to apologise for what Amy the neighbour termed "another day of hell". She is definitely suffering more than we are at the moment as we are at work/school most of the time.

We've had two days without a kitchen so far (the plan to leave erm, anything at all, in situ seems to have gone by the board as the urgency of the situation became clear). I have served up pitta and houmous and spaghetti on toast so far for the children, and a salad and fish pie (microwaved) and peas for Ed and I. I'm concerned that I've run out of inspiration and that Josie is going through a particularly picky eating phase at the moment, but I suppose this is kill or cure.

Speaking of the girls, we came back to a note yesterday telling us to stay out of the kitchen, because it is dangerous, and to be careful on the floor above. This concerned us somewhat as Josie's room is above, and although I don't actually think the whole lot is likely to collapse, it seemed provident to put Josie to sleep in Millie's room for the time being. This is an arrangement I have been lobbying for for some time, but one which Ed has refused adamantly up to now due to his fear that they would keep each other awake, wake each other up, and generally interfere with his beauty sleep. (It wouldn't interfere with mine other than for me to wake up and prod him to go and see what the matter is.) So far, his fears have proved unfounded as they slept like babies last night - in that Josie woke up screaming at 3 a.m. but that's standard, and she didn't wake Millie. They've gone off to sleep alright tonight too, so fingers crossed. If this works then we might look at them sharing officially for a while, which will leave us with a spare room for visiting relatives.

I can't face grappling with the camera to upload the photos tonight, so please just imagine a kitchen ceiling suspended on scaffolding and quite a lot of dust. Now I'd better post this before our geriatric laptop, which currently sounds like a contented cat on speed, finally gives up the ghost.

Day 24: Certificated

Well, very little of great note has occurred since last Wednesday. The roof is slightly more finished, but we still have no ground level windows or doors. Today one of the things that was holding up proceedings was resolved as our upstairs bathroom plumbing was rerouted so it didn't run below the roof line. The only external effect of this was the shiny new plughole and a length of white pipe - see photo. Josie did notice that the bath now makes a slightly different noise when emptying, but it's some way short of the "new bathroom" she declared it to be prior to having her bath.

I'm slightly alarmed at quite the amount of backpedaling that has occurred sine we slowed the project to keep pace with the kitchen install date. As far as I can tell there's a lot to be accomplished in the fifteen working days from next Monday, when they start knocking the old kitchen down, and the 22nd, by which time they will have had to have installed the doors and windows, made good the floor (which may simply be lying on bare earth our neighbours informed us), built a bathroom, supported the rest of the house on steels, built the pantry, plastered everything, built a wall around the dining room and knocked a window in said dining room and done all of the plumbing and electrics associated with the new kitchen including about a gazillion spotlights. We have also booked a decorator to come and paint the whole lot Magnolia (we really live in the edge in the Hopper household). This is due to take place prior to the kitchen install. Hmmm. That's ten individual quite large jobs that need doing, and even at the rate of one per day, they aren't going to make it. Of course, if we miss our kitchen install slot we are up a brown creek and there's no way it will be complete before Xmas. I say all this to you now dear readers, as my darling husband is adopting the ostrich approach to my concerns and muttering something along the lines of "lalalala I'm not listening!", so I need someone to sympathise with my concerns!

Anyway, we have finally heard from the council that the plans have been passed and a certificate issued, which I suppose is good news, if a little late in the day had there been any concerns.

Right, now I'm off to witter some more at Ed.

Day 21 - Let there be (roof) light(s)

Ed again...

Yay! Our extension is very nearly watertight, only a few more layers of slates to go on the left hand face of the new roof. In more exciting news, there are now four veluxes in the roof and the trifold door, the back door and the window ought to be in by the end of the week which is really pleasing. Of course, getting to "wind and weather proof" stage means paying another tranche of the invoice. ARRGGHHGHGHGH. Ahem. Sorry, I'm over it.

Of slight concern was the need for another steel to be put in to support the removal of the old fireplace in the kitchen. Gavin knocked a little hole into the wall in the kitchen to check that the party wall between our house was two bricks thick. He took out one brick and, fortunately, it is two bricks thick otherwise we would be left with a handy serving hatch through to Number 49.

It also occurs to me that once we have the doors and windows in the new walls our cats won't be able to get out on their regular ablutionary expeditions. Obviously, Helen lacks sympathy for the poor little furry beasts but I suspect that I might have to break out my "second cheapest in B&Q" jigsaw and winkle out a little hole in the new door for cat ingress/egress.

Hopefully, tomorrow I'll get home early enough to instruct Helen to take a picture of the TOP of the roof before the light goes.

Right, offski. It's the finale to tonight's exciting edition of Masterchef "The Professionals".

Days 19 and 20: Dig dig dig

Ok, so we didn't post anything yesterday but that is because nothing much happened. Apparently it was a "delivery day". Well I don't know what was being delivered or where it was being delivered to but I can confirm that there wasn't a single extra thing in the garden at the end of the day that hadn't been there at the start.

So anyway, the roofers arrived this morning to start living up to their name and thank heavens there was a roof covering on before the heavens opened at 5 p.m this evening. There are even a few tiles on as well. Apparently we will be watertight by Friday.

On consultation with Gavin the plan is that they will continue working on the new bit of kitchen, doing the first fix of the electrics and finishing off the walls etc, and then they'll start demolishing the existing kitchen w/c 1 November. This is fine, although doesn't quite gel with our pre-made arrangements to be away during the particularly kitchen-less bit. This will all link seamlessly with the arrival of the kitchen fitters w/c 22nd Nov.

Gavin also noted that Ed had said that he would dig out the area in front of the new trifold door himself. Gavin kindly offered to do it for us for the princely sum of just £840. Instead it took Ed 15 minutes in the pouring rain and it was done to the extent that it needs to be to get the trifold door in. To be fair, Gavin was going to dig out 2m worth and prep the area for a patio, but frankly, the way the budget is going he'd have been very lucky to get that gig. We won't even want a patio area until next Spring anyway.

Day 18: The last bricks done

Ed again:

The builders finished the end wall today and did a bit more furtling around with the rafters (see below) to get things ready for the four velux windows we are going to have dotted about the place.

The yellow plastic is to stop water getting down inside the walls if it rains overnight.

In that vein, Builder Number #1 told me sternly this morning that I would need to paint something(s) called the "Soffits" and the "Fascias" with two coats of undercoat and a gloss coat as a matter of some urgency lest "blowing" take place.

I took this to be a BAD THING so I popped to the local DIY store and relieved myself of some £35 (!!!) for undercoat, gloss, paint brush and paint brush cleaning stuff.

Thus armed I plan to give the wood a damn good coat of painting at tomorrow (Sat) after Helen has been on the local Parkrun and I've taken Millie to ballet. Rock and roll.

======= Day 18 and a half =======

As Saturday's and Sunday's don't merit their own entries (they aren't official "Days" by the rules of this blog), I am happy to also tell both of our readers that I have done the first coat of undercoat of the soffits and fascias.

The wood now defintely looks whiter than before and Socks is very pleased with the little pedestal which Builder Number #2 has built for her (it can't have been Builder Number #1 because, as avid blog readers will be aware, him hatey de catins).

Right, enough with all this blogging. It's the X-factor, don't you know.