...were in place when we got home. The wall where the radiator had come out looked rather a battlefield, though the new space-saving vertical radiator looks far better, and we now have a small amount of functional pipework rather than the dreadful straggle of the original. The washing machine is installed in the garage (not quite as specified, but it works, and drains without flooding the place). The tiling, promised for Monday, then Tuesday, had not begun, so our plan to return to a finished job was predictably foiled. On Tuesday night, tired after long travels, we felt on seeing the unfinished job rather like two small boys coming down on Christmas morning to find we hadn't got what we'd hoped for. In the sunlight next morning, things looked slightly less grim, and at about 09h30, James the cheerful tiler arrived to make a start. He had finished by Friday, having done a job I'd have been proud to have done myself (and I used to be quite good at tiling). I'm not sorry, though, to be without the thump-thump-thump of his macho-workman radio.
We now have conforming electrics - we were somewhat shocked when we moved here to find an old-fashioned fusebox hidden at the top of a cupboard - surely already obsolete by 1980, when the house went up? We now have an up-to-date and far more accessible set of circuit breakers, neatly hidden away in the side of a cupboard at a sensible level, and by using the old fusebox as a junction box the electrician has avoided a bit of extra work and cost.
There were a few detailed faults to pick up. The most significant are a couple of blemishes in the quartz work surface. One is a rough flake of cadmium yellow that stands proud of the surface: the other is a dimple of cobalt blue. Well, my dears, having spent over a month's pension on the bloody thing, we expected perfection. To be told that such imperfections were 'normal' did little for my sang-froid, so the ensuing conversation called for restraint. I've agreed to look at a sample that has been drilled and filled with clear resin; and if satisfied with that, to have the repair done on site, reserving my position the while. I think my work and other experience (and the example of respected colleagues) has taught me to state my position clearly, stand my ground, and shut up till my interlocutor answers. The summarising email has elicited a reasonably constructive response. Watch this space.
The tiler finished today, and project manager Jez has been round to do a spot of filling, so we'll soon be ready to make with the paint. Carpenter John is coming on Tuesday to do a bit of fine tuning on cupboard doors etc. The skip goes on Monday. Perhaps we'll be finished in a week or so.
Fine lunch at Jane's today, with Celia and Andy also invited. Jane's 4 year old beagle Mopsa greeted us boisterously on arrival, but soon got used to us, and, bribed with a chew, retired to her bed on the terrace in the sun. Curiously, Jane's new kitchen uses a similar finish to ours. I hope ours allows us to produce an equally luscious lunch.
Back home, I'm about to put the new ovens to proof on a couple of loaves. I think we'll need to get the stuff back into cupboards now that the worst of the snagging is out of the way. The 'where the $@*#'s the x?' moments are falling thick and fast. And will no doubt continue once stuff is in new homes.
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