21 April 2011

Well a lot has happened since the last entry.  We have had a lovely week at our country seat (rented) near Kendal in the Lakes.  Complete with sun, lambs, daffodils, friends and naked children in a stream, Shaw End was a welcome break from the dust and smoke of home.

We were obviously very excited on our way home, in anticipation of seeing the progress that had been made.  We were not prepared for the MASSIVE difference!

I was so impressed!  The layer of dust over every surface in the house was not SO impressive, but I've become used to eating out of a dusty bowl now.

Florian has a dream of installing a wood burning stove in the old boiler fireplace, and has made a little project for himself, moving pipes etc.  You'll have to agree it does look rather nice now!

The roof is a poured fibre glass one.  No I had never heard of it either.  Apparently it doesn't leak as much.  See below!

You can't see them, but there are about 12 pipe vents sticking up out of the roof vertically in a line beneath the windows.  They are bit unsightly so Florian took it upon himself to install a solar powered garden light in each one.  I was slightly concerned that jumbo jets inbound to Heathrow might get sidetracked, but so far only one light has been seen to work, so no worries there.

On the subject of lights I'd like to conduct a snap survey of my blog readers and ask you to count how many power sockets you have in your kitchen.  My request for 6 double sockets and a socket for each electrical appliance has more than doubled the original quote!!!  They think I'm some sort of power junkie!  There obviously isn't so much to plug in over in Romania.

 Still on lighting, I made the mistake of taking Florian's advice on down lights and we are now in serious jeopardy of draining the national grid in order to make a cup of tea at night.  I'm sure there is method in his madness if I ever  master the complex switch and dimming combinations he has created.

This week has been quite quiet builder wise.  There have been some new faces.  MC Hammer Trousers the plumber (put pipes in wrong place but said you can't touch this!), Hairy Face the plasterer and some dude who came to put the windows in.  They seem a pretty humdrum bunch, but don't be fooled, amidst the machismo and cement is an artist waiting to break out.  The evidence lies in our new "gnome garden" which appeared overnight......note the cunning placement of space enhancing mirror.  Is Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen Romanian?

Having an extension is not without peril, as I discovered yesterday when the girls and I found ourselves LOCKED IN THE BACK GARDEN when the internal door (with deadlock) blew shut.  I had conveniently, but not very security consciously, left the front door open!  If only I could get to it!
Using one of a fine selection of ladders I found in the garden I considered scaling the side fence in my maxi dress, but thought that using the neighbour's Merc as a stepping stone would be illconsidered and costly.  In the end I propped the ladder at the front and waited......for an unsuspecting member of the public to walk by.  The lady looked English, but wasn't.  We spent a comedy 10 minutes with me asking her to open the internal door and her showing me various sets of keys she found inside the house.  Eventually, with her tenacity and my (becoming wilder) pointing and shouting we bridged the language barrier and she let us in.  Phew!  Extensions!