I missed posting last week because I had a man in my wardrobe.*
Also I am just beginning to sleep again having had the current sit-up-all-night-coughing virus, that’s doing the rounds.
Also I was worried about my hospital check up appointment, then I went and got it on the wrong day, then I found out I wasn’t on the list anyway and the booking receptionist that deals with those appointments was having a day off.
Everything is covered in a layer of dust which has been normal round here for four months.
Also I am having a bit of a struggle with the lift manufacturers, I have been given four people to contact, two of whom don’t seem to go in for replying to enquiries.
The lift shaft is a huge hole in the middle of the house, where the massive chimney was, which turned out to be simply a feature built round the existing small chimney, right on top of the woodchip paper.
Woodchip paper, now there’s a thing, it’s everywhere here. As part of the get-to-the-bottom-of-it ethos of the build most of it has gone, but the lounge is still covered with it.
So I have had a mixture of first world problems, old fashioned terror of the cancer returning and a man in my wardrobe.*
When I rang the doctor to say I was worried he said he couldn’t do better if he requested a hospital appointment than the one in a fortnight, which it turns out I didn’t have anyway.
Then we had the asbestos problem. The soil stack for the existing bathroom having finally been identified, by the two plumbers who had been sent on the course to identify what pipes are made of, not as cast iron, as previously proposed, but as asbestos. After various chats to qualified people I have decided to revert to plan A which was to box it in and Leave Well Alone. It goes down into a poured concrete floor between two brick walls so it isn’t going anywhere and it comes out into the manhole as a ceramic pipe. I shall do what I did with the gas pipe, disconnected but still apparent to a builder or demolisher as a gas pipe. I made a fake brick (us doll’s house enthusiasts can make very convincing fake bricks, the virtuoso brick layer hadn’t spotted it.) On the back of the fake brick I wrote in 2000 that the gas was disconnected even though the pipe was still there. I shall add in 2019 the gas pipe was removed from the garage so any pipes embedded in the floor are empty. Before the soil stack gets boxed in I shall write a similar message on the wall before it disappears behind a fake wall and then anyone in the future will know what they are dealing with. Wonderful, decision made, work can proceed.
And then I found out that the soil pipe in the downstairs loo, which I was going to leave well alone until the builders broke the toilet, might be asbestos too.
And of course, there was a man in my wardrobe.*
I really need to get busy for Miniatura. I will as soon as I have finished sorting out my new work room. And cleaning the dust off everything.
Yesterday the OH joined in. He stripped the new bathroom of the old paper, with a steamer in his underpants. Hot stuff.**
As a result of all the above I now have to get busy with a paint brush, a feat now made possible by the disappearance of the man in my wardrobe*. I just checked, he has definitely gone, though the head builder will pop by on Monday for more money.
So if you think of me next week, I am standing in my wardrobe, or the landing cupboard, or maybe the bathroom, with a paint brush, painting away the fear until I get a hospital appointment.
A couple of months to the Min and a huge announcement about Autumn Min which I will announce when I announce it.
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* He was the plasterer, plastering my new walk-in wardrobe, made from a left-over bit of bedroom, which has become a bathroom and a lift shaft. I wanted a walk-in-wardrobe because I change size frequently and can’t afford new clothes in a different size, also I prefer old clothes in any size. And also, to be fair, it was an idea generated by watching American sitcoms on TV, where they all have walk-in wardrobes which they call closets. I could store a load of doll kits in a closet. Also clothes, probably.
** The steamer was not in his underpants, he was, because the steamer was making the tiny new bathroom very hot. He was wearing normal shoes, not wellies as you might expect, and, sadly, I could not find my camera, anywhere.***
*** And still haven’t. I don’t suppose you know where it is?