Byebye ...

I'm deleting Vicky Coren from the links on the right. Not only has she never phoned or written since our time together in Cardiff (did it really mean nothing to her?), but her blog is for some reason not posting updates here or on Google reader.

Bye bye also to builder. Yes, the work is complete! As well as a new clean bathroom, it's effectively extended my living room because I threw out so much stuff, or stuffed stuff upstairs. Later on, under cover of darkness, I'll test my theory that there really is room to swing a cat.

Byebye surely to the second division, but I'm not talking or thinking about that.

And hello again to Eddie Butler. Here's today's headline: "Johnson's men must follow mantra of liberation". Now I know it's about rugby, I've no urge at all to read the story, but can just add it to the poem his headlines are writing. Here it is, slightly edited (I'm Pound to his Eliot):

Johnson must follow mantra of liberation,
Sure Betsen starts wasps on their way.
Capital gains leave the French feeling shirty:
Evans the leveller saves quins at the last.

Do better is message for the Celtic giants:
McGeechan needs noise as now is the haste.

Details

Sunshine this morning, so I caught the pattern of the glazing of the new back door, on the new paint, on the new plaster, next to the new towel ring, holding the old towel.

And the old window catch, salvaged and fitted to the new window, which one day I'll clean.

Inevitably

the bathroom work has now stopped until the new year. Nothing done today as other work is demanding to be done. Actually, I'm not that bothered. It really is not much more than snagging now, apart from refitting the bath panels, which builder has agreed to do tomorrow. It's more of a problem for builder, because he's having to wait longer for payment. And he's agreed to take £300 off the roofing work that we'd already identified in the new year.

I can at least move my bathroom stuff back into the bathroom for two weeks, which means I have more room in the kitchen. And it means I did a smart thing today in buying a new bogbrush. From Woolworths, as it goes, at a stupid price. What a shop! As each shelf becomes empty, they sell it. The only bags they had (to put things in) were binbags, so I was traipsing around a rather smart town in Kent (hint: I began to feel disgusted and almost wrote a letter to the Telegraph), with this huge sack over my shoulder like a lowrent premature santa.

Some shops have their own atmosphere. Woolworths was desperately sad. I went into Halfords on Saturday to get a new headlamp bulb, and it smelt of disappointed ambition. I went into BHS today for the first time in years. Previously, I was put off by the SALE SALE SALE signs everywhere. Now it's the only shop that doesn't have them. It was halfempty. And HMV was basically saying we know you're going to buy dvds and cds, you don't care how much they cost, you'll even form a snaking queue halfway around the store to pay us. Packed. Bastards. I gave up and, reader, I bought the dvd I was intending to buy in Sainsburys later for £2 less. Take that, HMV!

Not in Norwich

I've amazed myself this morning by being in and out of Bluewater by 10:15. Haven't got Christmas totally (aha) wrapped up yet but I'm well on the way, with literally days to spare. It's still touch and go if the bathroom works will be finished by Christmas. The floor is now grouted and looking good, so what's left:

shower curtain rail
mirror
tighten wc fixing to ground
replace whb splashback with one that actually matches the other colours
a bit of work on the outside window and back door

It's all entirely achievable in one day but ...

Talk like a footballer

To be fair, the bathroom is an awkward shape, and hasn't builder gone on about it. To be fair, though, he did accept that he knew that all along. I sensed a tinge of bitterness that this means he can't charge me more even though the floor has probably taken far longer than he expected.

Yesterday the new tilers started again, and their first job was obviously to rip up the tiles Super Mario had laid, just to confirm that was a completely wasted day. Tonight the job's nearly done. A few odd triangles to fill in, and grouting and job's done. To be fair, it's a decent effort. Builder has not much of a gsoh, so I'll swerve the chance to wind him up tomorrow by saying, you know, I've decided I don't like those tiles; any chance you could take them up and replace them?

To be fair, I think the tiles are ok. So, just a few fittings more to go.

Not so super Mario

Builder's hired hand, Mario, has made a strong bid to be acclaimed the world's worst floor tiler. My bathroom is odd-shaped but I don't suppose many bathrooms are perfectly square. When you're tiling a bathroom floor, you expect to have to cut tiles, don't you? Not Mario. On Friday he took one look at the bathroom and decided he didn't want to cut any tiles and so he laid a pavement of whole tiles around the bath, leaving all the tricky bits for someone else. His entire day's work consisted of laying 19 (I've counted them) tiles. Today builder told me Mario had an accident with a power tool at the weekend and so won't be back. I hope the alibi for me and my chainsaw holds up.

Moroccan sands

That's the colour of my living room walls, now, and probably easier to guess what kind of colour it is. No-one guessed that Amazon beat was a kind of blue.

So the living room is bright and airy now. So's the bathroom. The back yard is clean and tidy, ready for some planting next year. And I've thrown out all the black ash. Will this bring a change in my character? How can I continue to be the gloomy Catford hermit? I'll have to skulk in the kitchen.

Talking of skulking, I'm doing so in a sense tonight. I considered going to Charlton to watch the game v Coventry tonight. The prospect of freezing my nuts off while with very little prospect of enjoyment somehow didn't do it for me. And now I see we're a goal down at halftime. Oh, doom.

More bathroom news

Woohoo! Paint on my bathroom walls at last! A first coat of Amazon Beat 4, to be exact. And a big bag of floor tile adhesive on the floor. And a second coat of emulsion in the living room, which is very nearly complete. And the splashback's grouted, which makes a huge difference, and to my eye, it's a good match to the wall colour.

I'm trusting the floor tiles will be a nice contrast, not some horror clash.

Re-entering the 20th century

Since yesterday, I've had a working toilet again, and today the whb is in place and usable and a bath is standing politely in line. Some of the plaster is still too wet to paint, and the floor is still bare concrete, but it's progress. Meanwhile in the living room, the walls are stripped and some undercoating has been done. There's a patch of replastering to be done, a bit smaller than I expected, and a rotten window bar that needs to be replaced. It all feels like it's getting better and after last week's depression I'm feeling much more cheerful.

But tired. Training, like yesterday, is always really knackering, because you're there for six hours leading a group of people, keeping up their interest levels or trying to calm them down. And it's physically demanding for a lazyguts like me to be on my feet for so long. So why did I wake up at 3am this morning only managing to send myself back into a hypnopompic state for half an hour before 7?

Where's the catch?

Still slow progress in the bathroom, but tonight builder has left a message on my answerphone along these lines: your bathroom is going to look so good [when it's finished] that we really think your living room should be decorated too [because it's currently a filthy dingy tip] and so, get this, we'll do it for nothing, for nothing, materials and labour inc, before Christmas, all you have to do is clear the room and put up with a bit more disruption. I can see one catch - there's clearly going to be some plastering needed, maybe £500 worth - but apart from that I just don't get it. The living room is a filthy dingy tip, true, but how long has builder been a charity? I'm delaying phoning him back, while I try to figure this out.

Close the door, they're coming through the window

So, the door was hung yesterday. It's a very nice door and I'm very happy with it. But today, my builder slammed the door and the bottom rail of the adjacent window fell off. So that will need replacing. But builder too is getting fed up with how long this is taking - it seems my bathroom is stopping him from dealing with other people's jobs, so he's just going to patch it up. Oh lord I don't want to use him again. For so many reasons. One, this bloody bathroom is taking forever. It's not entirely his fault, but days go by when nothing seems to have been done - like today. Two, he's such a bleeding drama queen. He loves it when difficulties arise, loves recounting them to me and showing how resourceful he is in overcoming them. Just fucking get on with it! Three, as time's gone on he and his crew have got increasingly untidy in their work. Today when I got home, apart from finding nothing had been done, I found he'd spread dust sheet over a stretch of living room carpet, but it was on top of a new stain. Did he think I wouldn't notice? But then again all of this is probably in the standard builder's job description.

Let there be a light fitting

My word, the bathroom seems to be taking forever. Every day is so exciting. Will there be any detectable change when I get home?

One problem is that the extensive replastering is taking a long time to dry out, as it's not been that warm and I can't leave windows open much, so that's holding up everything else. On Tuesday night at about 7 my builder arrived with a lot of bustle and cleared out all the plastering equipment to make way for the rest of the team and went to Wickes and came back with the new door. On Wednesday, nothing much seems to have happened. Yesterday, the door was still in its wrapping, propped up against my desk but the light fitting had been installed and a new door frame was in place.

Sad thing is, I'm getting used to life without a bathroom or living room. I've gone beyond turning into my mum and am now her grandmother.

Grey

A grey saturday, brightened only by the drying shades of plaster on the bathroom wall and the hilarious jigsaw of plasterboard pieces on the ceiling. My once-beloved Charlton are in faroff Plymouth this afternoon. I had considered the trip, not so much for the football but for a weekend away, but they'll have to lose without me.

And you'll notice I'm now carrying advertising. I am strictly instructed not to solicit clickage, so please don't! After the last pension-based post, you can bet they'll be very dull. I'm not expecting to make a fortune, although you might occasionally CAROL VORDERMAN NAKED find a slight change in my editorial policy. When I first set up my toolkit website (brianhaines.co.uk/toolkit) I put an Ask Jeeves box on it, and forgot about it. Sometime last ARE THESE REALLY BRITNEY'S NIPPLES? year they closed my account and sent me a cheque for £3.54, which is so far my total earnings from tinternet.

Progress?

Well, the guts are better, following the unusual remedy of a night in the pub. As for the bathroom, Thursday night was encouraging to find the basecoat on the walls complete, but basically sod all seems to have been done yesterday. At least another week of this then. Football this afternoon - probably a report here later.

Eurgh - you might not want to read this

Yesterday my builder talked to me about how difficult it is for them to do the plastering while the old toilet's still in place - could I do without it? I said that might be difficult. What would happen if I had diarrhoea at the weekend for example. We agreed that the pan could stay in place but the cistern could go, so I can flush it with a bowl of water. Guess what happened last night/this morning?

Got home last night about 7:30 feeling incredibly tired. Took one bite of reheated steak & kidney casserole and threw up exuberantly. Early to bed, feeling incredibly cold, and kind of watched The Restaurant. (How surprising was that result, by the way.) Spent all night hardly sleeping with a feeling of bad things happening in my bowels. At 6 woke up to fulfill the prophecy. If I didn't have the builders in, I'd certainly have taken the day off, but I'm at work, hungry but scared to eat, and with little faith in Imodiom Instants - how can something so small be any good?

Had a flu jab yesterday - could that be the cause?

Please, Dawkins, let this end soon!

A collapsing house

Well not quite. I've been putting off for years getting my bathroom (a ground floor single storey extension) renovated, and now I know why. The plaster was shot, so had to come off, but that revealed serious cracks in the brickwork and some dodgy joisting in the roof. So it's now a matter of tieing the wall together and putting on a proper render to hold it all together. If that sounds expensive, it is. I tell myself it'll all be worth it in the long run. I'll never be out of the tub.