It was a real 'mad house' here on Monday, the facia guys turned up first to 'crack on' and get the guttering finished, then the guys turned up to spray the foam, but they had to hang around for about an hour before starting as the other guys were still working on where the others wanted to run the hose in :(

They started about 10.30 and estimated about 5 hours to spray the foam - they told us afterwards that the area of our roof space is LARGER than a normal semi.

Then the facia guys discovered that they hadn't been given enough brackets for the guttering
:( They reckoned that the surveyor estimated for brackets to go every metre and not 800mm as they should be so they only got three sides done before they had to leave and get some more - the local supplier only had white NOT black.

The foam guys left about 2pm and the others then returned about for about 10 minutes to finish the last side.

Rubbish got collected on Tuesday, when we discovered that part of the lounge ceiling had been dented :( - they couldn't see what could have done it but later investigation by our builder discovered that there was a long length of twisted pipe up in the roof space that could have slipped between the beams and 'poked' a hole in the ceiling.

Our builder did his usual two days (thursday and Friday) and made a start on our main bedroom which is currently unusable for anything other than storage.

Yesterday he got the fitted wardrobes out and decommissioned an old 'built in' electric heater and we could see the full extend of what needed to be done - not too bad. Today he came back and stripped all the old paper off and made good - also sealed an old vent that is now 'defunct'. Then on his two days next week he will decorate using some odd rolls of paper that I have and paint so that we can move in there and hopefully GOM will have more room to get his w/chair nearer to the bed.

Glazing has been lined up for after the first week of July, so hopefully in the intervening weeks we can get the new loft hatch sorted and the rewiring and new pipework for the radiators planned.

Hoping to have my parents to stay for the Fathers' day weekend as our residents association is having their summer party where we can invite family - it may also be a prequal for my BIG Birthday in July :O

Beginning to find all the little oddities of the building now.

After once having a house that was over 100 years old I didn't really expect things to be 'square' but it's interesting how deceptive the eye can be.

This is the floor plan and running in line with the tops of the doors is a picture rail that runs all the way round begining and ending at the front door. It looks all the same height so the problems must be with the floor.

The first three doors went on without too much trouble although one had to have a total of about half an inch taken of the top and botton but the other two needed very little taken off.

The next three were two standard room doors and one narrower 27 inch cupboard door.

One door took nearly FIVE Hours to put on and needed more than an inch taken off the top and bottom - so much in fact that the tools kept hitting the staples that are used to hold the door together. Our maintenance man blunted all his tools and broke his electric planer which was why it took so long as he had to do all the planeing by hand. In comparison the next door he put on was actually TOO SHORT and NARROW for the space and the only bit that had to be taken off was one corner where there was a telephone cable running through the door way. It's only the door stops that cover the gaps.

The only door left to do now is the one for the bedroom that we have to decorate before we can use it. There are fitted cupboards to come out so no point putting the door on yet until this room is finished.

Other work is now getting scheduled as they came to start the work on the roof last wednesday. But then things went a bit pear shaped on thursday when the team started to put up the facia and guttering when in reality they didn't know what they were supposed to be doing. A new teamed turned up on Friday and had to start again almost from scratch - in fact the team leader said it would have been quicker if they had started from scratch, but they didn't finish on Friday and left us without guttering - and yes, you guessed it, we had a torrential downpour on Friday night. They came back for a few hours on Saturday, but still didn't get finished so still no guttering. The guys are supposed to be coming on Monday to spray the foam insulation on the inside, so we'll have both teams working here. Should be interesting

Next Job is the glazing - we know the company - they did the glazing at the flat - so there shouldn't be any problems here and we need to get in a tree surgeon to sort out some of the trees at the end of the garden - but that's another story

Finding muscles I didn't know about - it can only be because of the extra work caused by the move.

Latest is my right arm.

I'm supposed to 'help' gom with an exercise programme but with a sore arm it's not been possible as his legs are a 'dead weights' and it hurts me to just to lift them to do the stretches/exercises without even trying to push against his legs when they don't want to go :(

On top of this they can sometimes go into spasm when I've been holding them which has probably contributed to my problems.

Have had a couple of massages that have included some work on the arms which has helped a bit, but...... It also give me a good excuse to have baths rather than showers although showers at home aren't really viable at the moment because of the water pressure (hardly anything coming out of the shower head).

Managed to make some sort of inroad to the garden at the weekend - got a mower and got too the lawn - but it had been allowed to get too long and was a real struggle but got there in the end nealry started to have problems with my back again but I think I was able to pack up just in time.