Month: July 2022

Can You Dig It?

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

Brace yourselves.

The conservatory…….is finished!

Well, I say finished…the workmen have left for the last time so they are done. I have a few small DIY tasks that I have to do (badly) which fell in between all the various trades that worked on it. I have some floor edging stuff to do on the stairs and some beading around the wooden cover for the electric box. This is the sort of detail you need of a Sunday I know.

That happened on Friday. All week we’d been braced for the start of the groundwork at the back and despite a promise of Tuesday, a brief visit to check a few things out on Wednesday it wasn’t until Friday that we were told they would definitely be coming. Of course, it had to happen that despite all the available days, both sets of workmen had to be coming on the same day!

Well, thanks to a fire on the M6 our groundwork chaps sat in traffic for four hours before giving it up. So all that happened on that day was the delivery of the digger and dumper truck.

Do not worry, the next day they were here bright and early and things got going. To access the back of our house, there is a ramp around the side and Saturday morning was the first morning since living here that someone had chosen to park in front of the gate that leads to it. So I spent much of early Saturday knocking on neighbour’s doors, asking if they owned said car.

Long story short, we did not get that car moved, but we did find the owner of the one next to it who moved it and allowed the machinery to squeeze past up onto our field.

Naturally, being peak summer, it rained all Saturday whilst they were working, and in the early stages there were definitely some “what have we done?” moments.

It was better for my mental health not to watch too much, to be honest. By the time they left they had made decent progress with only one minor scare when the digger driver thought he was heading for our conservatory.

You can now start to see the shape of what we are trying to do. One big terrace level at the bottom for a table and chairs etc and one smaller terrace above it mainly to stop the field coming into the kitchen and for flower pots and other stuff that I will not be involved in sourcing.

The thing that concerns me most right now is the photo above shows where the digger was left. It has rained for 24 hours and I have visions of the rain eroding….

the earth beneath it and the digger coming down the hill at speed into our only just finished conservatory. I’ll be very glad when they are back tomorrow to move it. They are bringing a smaller digger tomorrow to get down onto the respective new levels to square them off etc. Hopefully, by early next week, we’ll be past the digging bit and into the putting it back together bit.

This is the worst part of any job for me with my aversion to mess and disruption. It still has to get a little bit worse before it starts to get better. Anyway, this huge investment in our outdoor space will be well worth it so that we can enjoy these endless summers we are experiencing so frequently in the UK!

It has been a while since this blog brought you news of any Florida adventures, but that changes today. Last week, Rebecca and Tom booked a holiday for next April and they are, quite rightly, very excited about the whole thing. They are doing ten nights at Animal Kingdom and then four nights Royal Pacific at Universal. They are in the very early planning stages and it will be weird for them having to plan stuff for themselves and even weirder for me to not to take over and try to plan stuff for them! I am trying to strike the balance between helpful advice and meddling idiot. I think we all know which way that may go.

I shall leave you now, as I have a mound of muck with a digger on top of it to stare at for the rest of the day. If you hear on the news about a fat lad up North getting crushed to death by heavy machinery in his conservatory then you’ll know what happened.

Till the next time…..

An Officer and a Moaning Man

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

What sort of idiot would I look like if we still hadn’t got the conservatory finished?

Our chap came on Monday, did a bit, said he needed his helper and would return on Tuesday. He did, with his helper. Then he declared it too hot (it was 34 degrees to be fair) and his silicone was all runny, so he couldn’t finish off. He’s due back tomorrow. By the time this thing is finished, we’ll need a new one.

Anyway, I moved my “office” into the conservatory on Friday, unable to wait any longer. The bits left to do are largely outside and what passes for my office (a chair and a desk) won’t get in the way. Louise isn’t keen on my less than sexy office furniture messing up her lovely new room so they may be in for a swap out at some point.

That blue wing-backed chair doesn’t officially live there but I wasn’t moving it to take a photo! You can see that outside is still in a state of flux too, awaiting the next phase of work.

Nothing has a permanent home outside yet, hence the random covered things strewn around the place. Once we get the next bit done, we can restore some order.

This is what the old conservatory looked like.

What was my office upstairs will be inherited by Emily as a dressing room/bedroom overflow, in an attempt to see what colour the carpet in her bedroom is for the first time since we moved in. She needs the extra space.

On the first day in my new office, it happened to rain for the first time in about two weeks. Of course with the last few jobs outstanding being the final bits of guttering, it was akin to water torture with the many and various drips. Still, it’s a much more pleasant environment to spend 8 hours a day, four days a week in. I spend the other day in my “proper” office in Manchester. Every time I make that journey now, I marvel at how I tolerated doing that commute for five days a week for nearly a decade, and other similar ones for decades before that, without blowing my brains out. It’s funny how what once appeared normal can now feel ludicrous and unnecessary. There was a very large part of my working life where I wore a suit and tie every single day too, and as ridiculous as that concept is to me now, it went unquestioned at the time of course. These days, the most formal I get for four days of the week is to replace my slippers with trainers to walk the dogs. Having to wear jeans for my office day is barely tolerable!

I am braced for the start of what will be some significant groundworks starting this coming week. The mess is isolated to the rear of the garden but I am still not looking forward to it, knowing it will bring mess, unforeseen complexity and stress. A couple of weeks of that and I really hope we can then say goodbye to workmen, disruption and angst for a good while.

Aside from me stressing about minor inconveniences, in more important news, it is Emily’s birthday on Tuesday. Allow me to make you all feel old by telling you she will be 27. The fact that our last workmen thought she was 16 is funny, and I keep telling her that it won’t be long until she enjoys looking so young.

Have a great week and brace yourself for what could be an armageddon of moaning next week if the work goes as I expect it to. Who knows, the conservatory might be finished too.

Till the next time…..

Conservatory…Still Loading.

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Imagine if we’d gone a whole other week and still had no progress on finishing the conservatory.

He’s coming tomorrow. Sigh.

Phase 2 of the garden stuff starts a week tomorrow, so by the time the Christmas adverts start in October we should be close to done. We’ve been working hard out in the garden, and I know it’s hard to imagine what could be left to do, as we have no grass now, but the more we do, the more mess we seem to make. Ultimately, until phase 2 is done we’re not going to be in the settled state of the end game.

Louise tended to an unruly bush yesterday and that was long overdue. Today she is planting some flowers in our newly exposed flower bed (it was hidden by said unruly bush) and I spent Saturday tidying up all the mess the various tradesmen have left us with. Broken tiles, window frames, old radiators, doors and a smorgasbord of detritus in various outdoor locations were gathered, bagged and stacked ready for a tip run during the week. I may be a lot of things, but I am not stupid enough to attempt the tip at the weekend.

Rebecca and Tom are in their new place now and it’s lovely, with a much more suitable amount of space for the new size of their family. They’ve been doing what everyone has to do when moving house, namely shifting stuff from one house to another, cleaning and going to Ikea. I popped round to have a look and Freddie gave me the guided tour, full of the excitement only four-year-olds can express. As for Dougie, well it’s safe to say, he changes every day at the moment and there are signs that his character is starting to emerge.

For those of you persisting to read this tripe, over a decade in now, I do offer an apology that there is little of substance at the moment. Yeah, I hear you, when was there ever? With Louise (willingly) tied to Mary’s care, which only becomes more involved and demanding, there are no holiday plans to “entertain” you with, and our lives are a little Groundhoggy right now. Luckily, we have all this work on the house to keep us and you entertained, right?

The joy of listening to some idiot whinge about his first-world problems every Sunday is the very foundation upon which the “success” of this blog has been built on.

The news for most of last week has been full of heat wave warnings and clips of folks eating a Solero, yet up here in the frozen north, we’ve had very little of it, to be honest. It’s been “pleasantly warm” at times, but nothing worthy of uncovering the now many and varied pieces of garden furniture strewn around our new flags. You’d hope, at some point this summer that we might get a chance to use our newly enhanced outdoor space?

I’m sure the temperatures tomorrow and Tuesday are going to be dangerous in places so please do take the warnings seriously and sit in a cold bath with the obligatory Solero. I await the call from the conservatory man to declare the weather too hot to do what he needs to do and we’ll continue to be stalled at 98% completion of the conservatory.

Having worked hard all last weekend and all of this so far, I am now going to make some lunch and attach myself to the couch and watch some of the golf. Who said there was no glamour in this blog?

Till the next time……

I Missed A Bit

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

It turns out those 67 coats of the conservatory ceiling were still not enough and it probably needed one more. Did I mention my hatred for painting freshly plastered ceilings?

We’ve had a frustrating lack of activity on the whole getting things finished this week. Our conservatory man had van issues early in the week and then tested positive for COVID, so he won’t be with us until next week. The angst of being at about 95% completion is like waiting for those last few percentages to load for your new Play Station game when you have average broadband speed like in our front room.

Life continues to be busy and chaotic and we aren’t choosing to just take one day at a time, we just have no choice as we don’t have time to think any further ahead. We are dropping balls all over the place, not speaking to parents as often as we should and not spending time with the girls and grandkids as much as we’d like. Mary has not been well this week and has needed a lot of TLC and more basic and less pleasant attention for a stomach upset, and of course, we continue to try and integrate little Woody into our house. He’s doing OK and finding a routine but he still needs a lot of attention.

Yes, he has his own Instagram account. Blame Emily and Louise for that.

Rebecca and Tom are moving house this weekend. Of course, I feel for anyone going through that experience, as those scars are still very real for me, some eighteen months after we did it. I am hopeful their experience will be better as their move isn’t one all being done in one day so they have got some time to move their stuff over time. They got a lot done yesterday so hopefully, the worst is behind them now.

Dougie is doing well. He recently slept from 10.30 till 5.30 which is better than I normally manage. Obligatory Freddie/Dougie photo incoming.

They were at our house on Friday and I had the pleasure of being able to feed Dougie. Whether it’s wind or an actual smile is there anything more lovely than a baby smiling at you?

I spent all day yesterday painting the conservatory. I know painted windows may be an odd look but we are going with it. Of course, the painting was not of the glass but instead the seemingly small areas of plaster and wood that I thought might take an hour or two but I started at 10 and finished around 5.30. Even after doing two days of the same last weekend. That involved one more coat of the ceiling and two coats of the walls. Thankfully Louise has chosen a darker colour for the walls so just the two coats seem to have done the trick.

Today there were more “finishing touches” to do before we get the last of the construction done by our hopefully soon-to-be COVID-free builder one day next week. As another sign of my surprising DIY prowess, I used a drill this morning and there was no fire, hospital visit or damage to property.

Then it took me another hour to clean all the frames and windows of all the dust, crap and plaster that had happened to them during the construction process. All that work and a long-overdue visit from my Mum and Dad are the reasons for the late hour of posting this thing. I won’t speak of the time spent cleaning all the paint speckles off the floor tiles. I had put covers down but somehow this stuff found its way to the floor.

So with time a precious resource that’s the lot for this week. I’m going tp nip over to Rebecca’s new house now to have a look around. Louise went on Friday as they started the move and will have to stay home with Mary today as she needs 24/7 care.

I hope you’ve enjoyed your sunny weekends and endured less painting than I did. There surely can be nobody on the planet who has spent more of their weekend painting than I? Persecution complex? Never!

Till the next time…..

Punching Kevin McCloud

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

You’d have thought the chaos and stress had peaked last week, looking at the photos I shared, but no. Early this week went to another level, and I don’t mean some mildly successful R&B boy band from the early 2000’s.

This week saw Magic Mike and his mates doing all the cutting of the flags to fill in the bits around the edges. Endless noise (sorry neighbours) and a dust cloud suggesting a volcano had gone off not too far away made for a lovely time.

Sporadic rain also made the endless treks of workmen through our kitchen all the more muddy and lovely and all in all, as with any job of a decent size, you find yourself wondering why you started.

They finished (this phase) on Friday and aside from the wall at the back that looks like a bomb site until phase 2 gets done, (avoided in these photos) the results are below.

Clearly, we have yet to make it all pretty and stuff but at least the “construction” phase is complete.

At the same time, we edged closer with the conservatory, with the plumber coming to change our old radiator to a new one. I’m not saying I am an expert at all things DIY, but I had to show the plumber how to refill our boiler. Just before we moved in, the previous owner fitted a boiler just slightly less advanced than the space shuttle and the plumber had never seen one like it before. Amazingly this sharing of expertise resulted in no discount.

The tiler finished the floor last Sunday and aside from blasting the caked-on dust all over the outside of it, caused by the cutting of the flags, we have some painting to do before we can start to move furniture in and begin to use it. Is there any DIY task more soul-destroying than painting a freshly plastered ceiling? By the looks of the first coat that I applied yesterday another 67 should do the trick.

We have one more day for the builder to do next week, finishing off some guttering, downpipes and snags before a job I thought would take a couple of weeks at the end of April might get done before the end of July.

If Kevin McCloud were to turn up now and have the post-project chat with us, at the point he asked us how we were doing versus our original budget, the only response would be to punch him in the face. These last couple of weeks especially have taken it out of us, whatever it is.

We’ve spent the weekend cleaning up outside and painting, driven by the desire to have some normality back in our lives. If we don’t get some decent weather now I may ring Magic Mike and ask him to come back and return it all to how it was.

As much as the new layout at the back of the house looks better, mainly as the dogs had ruined the lawn by peeing on it, and it was a bit untidy and overgrown, the largest benefit beyond having some lovely outdoor space now is that it is one less patch of grass I have to mow. I have a Flymo going spare if anyone needs one? Only used about a dozen times and is useless to me now for the “big mow” on the field as that one needs the petrol thing we’ve got.

So I must leave you now, as I have a date with destiny in the conservatory. That ceiling won’t paint itself another 67 times. Who knows, by the time we meet again next week we may be approaching something that looks like completion. As much as that will be a relief to all of you reading about endlessly, I know I will be significantly more relieved.

Till the next time…….