My house has been in an ongoing state of chaos for the last week – I’m having yet more work done on it. This time, it’s the main bathroom, which has barely been touched since we moved in over fifteen years ago. We had it rewired, along with the rest of the house, as soon […]
The new cleaners have got off to a somewhat shaky start. They certainly turn up on time every week, are much more reliable in that respect than my previous cleaning company. And they do a pretty good job at keeping the house relatively clean. However, there was a definite problem last week that has led […]
The mice in the loft have been a real nuisance this summer. They start their scrabbling about 11:30pm and keep going intermittently until about 4am – all directly above my bed. It’s the intermittent bit that’s really the problem – I can generally ignore a constant background noise when I’m trying to get to sleep, […]
Well, three burly tattooed roofers have been here all week, fixing the roof of the extension, and their verdict is now in. A damp-proof course has been fitted under the bottom tile, all the way around the roof, to stop water soaking in to the barge boards. It doesn’t look much different to before, but […]
I’m in the midst of the next chapter of the ongoing saga of my attempts to keep this house watertight. This time, it’s the poorly-constructed roof of the extension, which has been built with an inadequate overhang, and incorrectly sized and positioned bargeboards. Water has been dripping off the roof onto the cement under the […]
After at least eight years, my cleaners have just given notice. I’ve seen it coming for a while, but it’s still unfortunate and inconvenient. They are two sisters, who work together as a team, but their elderly mother has become extremely frail and has moved in with one of them, who now has become virtually […]
The toilet in what was Christopher’s bathroom has had a persistent leak for months. I’ve had a plumber take a look at it three times now, but it was apparently unfixable. To be fair, it was a very old toilet, and I’m not particularly surprised the innards had corroded solid. When we bought this cottage […]
……And this time I swear they’re wearing hobnailed boots! After a weekend punctuated by extremely loud thumping from the loft, I phoned Martin, my very cheery pest controller, first thing this morning. He’s obviously got my number programmed into his phone, because he answered it with “Hello Gillian, I was just thinking that I’ve not […]
I’ve had Rob the painter here yet again, mostly working on painting the outside of the house this time. It really is a Forth Bridge style job – something seems to need doing every year, and it never seems to get finished. In fact, in the one week that I had him here, he was […]
I am making the most of being in between projects at work, by taking a few days off this week to improve the house. Today, my cost-effective and friendly plumber is back, replacing the old, rusty radiator in the bathroom with a new heated towel rail. It’s a very nifty unit – it’s plumbed into […]
