13 October 2008 Monday – Running water

I spend the morning putting up strips of wallpaper that I cut to size yesterday. This is to cover the cat damaged and damp affected bits that I inherited in the living room. I had to wait until I found a roll of woodchip paper to blend in with the existing paper. This takes until about noon by the time I have tidied all the stuff away.
I decide to copy the CPAM form that I was sent. I switch on my desk top computer but it no longer wants to boot up. The fan whirrs but no one is at home.
My scanner and printer are all from the Windows XP operating system era, the same as my desktop.
I get the extension reel up from the studio and plug the scanner and printer into it. The windows Vista on my laptop hates my printer and my scanner, but especially my scanner. It is 2 hours before I eventually find software that will make the scanner work. Canon UK software does not work, I have to raid the Cannon US web site before I succeed.
At about 4.20pm the builders arrive. They start draining down my hot water tank in order to plumb in the pipes from the bathroom to the kitchen sink.
No major floods occur.
I have now taken the side off my desk top computer and am kneeling on the floor looking hopefully for a reason why it refuses to work.
The builder is very interested and his hands are soon busy in amongst the cables and wires. The connector to the hard drive is not fitting properly. It looks probable that when the shop in Clevedon fixed my computer earlier this year, they damaged the end pins on the drive. A tweak of a screwdriver and the connectors are bent to fit back in to the cable.
I try the main switch and we have ze beep, which means the computer is booting up. Then I put the case back on and connect up to the internet to download and apply all those updates that Norton Security systems have been itching to supply me with since I last powered up the pc online.
This takes a while.

I now have hot and cold running water in the kitchen. There is still some trunking to be fitted in the bathroom to cover the new water pipes, so the builder will be back on Wednesday afternoon to do that work, give me my bill and look at the next items of work that I need doing.

I start putting pots, pans and packets into my kitchen cupboards. This is what it now looks like in use, but tidy.
Note my massive Hansgrohe tap on my kitchen sink.

It was expensive and the big nozzle bit swivels 360 degrees. I will have to be careful with it as the stainless steel sink flexes quite a bit when the tap is used.

11 October 2008 Saturday - Pizza

There may well not be any builders today (they are coming back to finish up on Monday afternoon), but I still have to get up early. I missed out on buying fruit from the market yesterday and I am down to my last peach, 6 yellow plums and some grapes.
Once again the tenants downstairs woke my up at 5am.
It is a lovely warm day today from early on.
Intermarche first to buy some supplies, then followed by a trip across the car park to Bricomarche. I buy some clear varnish (a bit of a mistake as you cannot see where you have applied it on the velux wood, some lino glue and a nice “private property” sign to add to my car park “parking prive” signs. Unfortunately they only have the one sign in stock and I want two, so I will have to look next time. I also want two number 12 s to make it look more like my parking area belongs to a house number.
I give parts of the velux a first coat of varnish, and treat the worktop also. In three hours I can start applying a second coat.
The rest of the afternoon is spent bringing my blog up to date.

The old shower base

replaced by a sink unit






wall cupboards above the cooker and base /work top unit






Ah here is my pizza oven.






When it comes to evening meal time, it is time to break out the pizza that I bought earlier in the week as the first thing I cook in my new cooker. I take the wrapper off my 3 cheese pizza, then I look at the cooker dials and realise that I don’t know what the symbols mean. I read the pamphlet that came with the cooker. I have to have the oven on at 250 degrees for an hour before I use it for the first time, to get rid of any manufacturing residues. I also have to put on each hob ring for 5 minutes on full heat.
My pizza therefore takes an hour and 10 minutes to cook. The pizza is perfect.
I will leave the excitement of preparing my rings until tomorrow.
By the time I go to bed, I have given the worktop 3 coats of varnish and I have prepared part of the living room wall for wall papering tomorrow. If conditions are right.

10 October 2008 Friday – Almost complete

A cool day today. The builders arrive at about 9.45am and start their drilling again. They fit the kitchen cupboards but have problems finding bits of wall without hidden cables. Their wire finding machine keeps beeping all day.
Still studying in the present tense, I am doing reflexive verbs at the moment.
There is still a long way to go in my exercise book.
By half past 5, the cooker (Which has been a cochonerie to wire up) is in place, the cupboards are all installed. The sink is installed but there is no water supply to it yet. The fridge/ freezer is in place and the wall mounted fire has had to be removed to a) get the fridge freezer in and b) allow the freezer door to open.
The kitchen door has been put back in place and as a result, the oven door can only be opened if you close the kitchen door first.
Things are finally getting somewhere. Will I be able to sleep now that the fridge freezer is no longer in my bedroom?
The builder has supplied a small kitchen worktop which is just larger than 2 large table mats placed side by side. It is not conglomere he says, it is wood which is much better. It is untreated wood so this means that I will have to buy varnish to protect its surface from water etc. I also need to varnish the velux window and its surrounding wooden collar.

I have received various correspondence regarding my health cover and health insurance. CPAM has decided to change my social security number already, and I need to send them a photo of myself, fill in and sign another form and send it back to them in the envelope provided making sure to put a stamp on the envelope. I must do this without delay. I also have to enclose a photocopy of something, so I will need to work out what they want. Once they have received and processed my post, I will be sent my carte vitale, which I will need to show every time I need medical treatment, to pay for prescriptions etc. It will be credit card sized and will work just like a credit card.
The bank health top up insurance has also been in action, and there is another card waiting at the bank for me to collect. I wonder if the change to my social security number will cause problems? I will have to remember to take the letter in to the bank to show them. They will also want to photocopy the letter as they seem to photocopy everything.

In the evening S and I succeed in getting Skype video to work.
Another day is done, but not dusted.

8 October 2008 Wednesday - comings and goings

At 5am the big black land rover from last night arrives and the driver is let into the 1st floor apartment. 30 minutes later he leaves with one of the tenants in the big beige van. At 7am they return and a while later the beige van drives off again. A bit later and the black vehicle leaves with the driver and the other tenant. Hopefully that will be that.
But no, at around 9am the beige van plus the tenants are back. Perhaps work is cancelled for today due to the rain?
At 10.15am the builders arrive, so I have a full car park. 2 cars and 2 vans.
The rain continues to fall.
The older builder asks if I heard from S last night. I tell him that it is true that she has resigned from her job.
There is a lot of drilling and banging during the day, and by the time they leave I have holes in another 3 walls. The flexible piping for the hot and cold water is now threaded through from the bathroom to the kitchen but is not connected and there is a black cable poking through the wall next to the fuse box.I am still coughing too much in the evening to go to choir practice tonight. I clear up some rubble and dust then start giving the kitchen ceiling and walls a second coat and the ceiling round the velux its first coat. Two hours later I give the velux area its second coat.

7th October 2008 Tuesday - sky light

I get up early and open up some packets of dust sheets to cover as much of the computers, tv and bedding etc that I can, because they could be drilling through walls in the apartment today to feed hot and cold water pipes the bathroom across the hall and into the new kitchen.
The builders arrive and start bringing stuff up from their van.
During the morning they start making a hole in the roof

and by noon they have made a nice rectangular space and fitted a wooden frame into it.

Builder on the roof

They leave for their lunch and return after 2pm. By the time they leave at ten past 4, they have fitted the velux

view from velux window

and the toilet seat and have brought the kitchen units up to the first landing and the sink unit into the living room. They will be back tomorrow to start the hole drilling etc.
My cold has come back and by mid afternoon I do not feel very well again. It’s probably not helped by the lack of sleep last night.
The weather which was supposed to be at least as good as yesterday, does not live up to expectations and by 4pm it is dull and cold.
I have spent the day studying French verb tenses, but I am still living in the regular present by the time I call it a day.

I receive a text from S early in the afternoon saying that she has handed in her notice. I phone her in the evening and it is true.

Having furniture out on the landing is a bit of a worry and I keep going out to check on it. Usually the evenings are quiet, but not tonight. Two men keep parking on my “drive” and coming up to the 1st floor flat adjacent to my kitchen units, banging on the door and shouting “Mahmood”. He is out, but they come back at least 3 times over the course of the evening.
I go to bed at 10pm and it starts to pour with rain. I check on the new velux and there are no puddles on the floor.