apologies

Sorry not to provide more updates recently. Been busy:

Unpacking boxes

writing 3 articles

1 novel (unfinished)

organising 40th birthday party (am old man soon)

taking arlo to doc’s in London

doing above while avoiding snow

worrying about house

-for some reason am convinced the plaster’s going to suddenly fall off the wall, the kitchen floor will cave in and one day when we flush the loo in the upstairs bathroom the soil pipe will fail and there’ll be a jet of toilet flush shooting across the garden into nextdoor neighbours… not that it keeps me up at night. Oh no.

Also convinced the fact that bulbs keep blowing and fire alarm goes off loudly if you even whisper the fact that you’ve got the oven on is evidence that the electricians stitched us up.

Need sleep, methinks.

Arlo thinks our lampshades are lovely. And so does his finger puppet dolphin. And they are.

floored

So I should have learned. I mean especially with this, right? When we moved into Moselle Avenue – previous house in London – I spent two days lifting cork tiles from hall and bathroom and kitchen. “Lifting” is a bit of a misnomer, I was hacking at them with a floor scraper, with the result that my hands developed such huge blisters in the centre of them that I literally couldn’t move my hands by the evening and had to discover the joys of elastoplast gel plasters to do anything the next day. 

So here I am faced with another kitchen floor, ceramic tiles laid on top of cork tiles…

Following the cue of the man from the flooring shop I have been scraping the tiles with the small end of my crowbar. When flooring shop man did it it looked so easy,. but he did only do 5cms before stopping. My efforts are a bit larger scale. This is what happens when you scrape it:

cork tiles helpfully leaping off the floor and saving me the bother of having to do any work at all. Not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And just in case there’s any doubt as to what we’re dealing with here’s a piece with my hand to scale:

 

my hand and a piece of kitchen floor, earlier today

 

 

 

Alas, poor hand it looks so old! I shall never be Mr Pear’s Best Hand 2009!      The plasterer took pity on me and leant me a scraper that performed somewhat better. And with the addition of steam from the wallpaper steamer things were fun fun fun till the plasterer took his scraper away and went home. (If I can make that scan it could work in a song lyric, or something.)

On my way home tonight I bought a floor scraper from Wickes for £10.99. 

“You’d think I’d have though to buy one of these this morning,” I said to the cashier.

“I don’t want to know about what you did this morning,” she replied. 

Fair enough.

email to a friend pt2

Sorry to bother again, and I won’t make a habit of it. Much.

Bathroom has been insulated and batonned! Plasterer making good everywhere.

Now, we’ve been stripping out the kitchen. Downstairs room andfloor  wise we’re now down to ceramic tiles on top of cork tiles on top of  lino. Yes, really. What bothers me is that this is a concrete floor  and I thought it was solid. But in the middle of it if I hit it with  a hammer or even stamp on it, it sounds hollow to me – especially in  comparison to the other solid concrete floor in the adjacent utility  room. Is it possible there’s a cavity underneath and should I  investigate further? The floor slopes / dips around this area…

It has also been seen by a couple of people who are hoping to lay a marmoleum floor for us and they haven’t passed comment on it. Doubt  if it’s going to collapse, but all the same, could it be hollow under  there? And should I look further….

Cheers