Storing Up Trouble

The beginning of the end-of-May mid-term break was always going to begin the way it all began - a slow Saturday morning in sleepy Datchet. The dogs had quit barking by daybreak, and the natives had rolled home later than that, after a night of hooch at the Morning Star. The postman wouldn't knock at all that day, and nobody knew or cared whether the sub-Post Office had even opened on time. Sure, the Tesco Express checkout machines had been powered up, but nobody came.

Suddenly, just two hours short of High Noon... Pickford's Boys rolled into town. An outrider cut a path into the Lawn Close cul-de-sac, and was followed in by the main wagon... These boys had obviously done this sort of thing before. The sleeping dogs began to get twitchy, and their owners' curtains too. I reached for my kettle.


Pickford's Boys circled their wagon as best they could in the 'sac, and set up camp outside Andy's place. Soon they were headed straight over the driveway - they didn't care that it was the meanest looking driveway in the Close, and they just put the boot to the weedy concrete. But they were no cowboys - they talked business like they meant it, had a cuppa, and began dismantling the place...

They took my furniture to pieces, boxed my [b]ears, and other stuff too. The strangest thing was that nothing was busted by the time they'd finished. Don't get me wrong, these guys were no angels - and they could have smashed up everything if they'd had a mind to. But they knew that I had them covered - my trigger-finger was on my pen barrel the whole time, and my eye was sizing up the small print. That was my insurance policy.

"Awright... Let's git yer shifted then, mate!" (but in Polish)

Easy does it... Hup!

By the time it was all over, Pickford's Boys had pretty much cleaned me out. I didn't know when I'd see the family jewels again. Sure, I knew they'd be holed-up in Pickford's stash-house over by Reading, but I couldn't imagine that I'd go sticking my nose into that neck of the woods, at least not until I'd repaired the roof over my head. The insurance company had long ago stopped talking about renovations being completed by mid-March, and even mention of it being completed by late June was someone speaking with forked tongue - I was just hoping it wouldn't end up in an Indian summer. Anyway, at last the reconstruction workers had room to swing their lead and get plasterboarded - all the ceiling-less rooms they wanted, and the floorless attic too.

When all was said and done at the end of that long day, Pickford's Boys had stirred the brown stuff plenty, and one even took three sugars with his. At least I still had my kettle - Pickford's Boys couldn't take that away from me, and they knew not to try...

Soggy Tale... 3 months later

Three months further on, and the end to this soggy tale is nowhere in sight :(

The drying-out machines (industrial dehumidifiers) originally were promised for the first week in January. Drying-out would take up to six weeks, and 'reinstatement' (renovations, to the layman) would take around three weeks, so that everything would be fresh and sparkly by the end of March.

Instead, it seems there's been a shortage of machines due to lots of house-floods since last December. So, finally machines were delivered around the middle of April, and have been operating 24-hours a day, 7 days per week, since then. Every few days, I empty out the water that has been deposited into buckets by the dehumidifiers.


Every silver lining has a cloud... instead of a machine in every affected room, as promised, only two machines were delivered. One sits inside my front door, and is bump-into-able by unwary visitors. The other sits in the downstairs dining-room. The noise and vibration caused by their fans and other bits and bobs can be a bit wearing, especially when they dub over the occasional smoochy bits on the telly, or the luvverly choir of songbirds.

'The man' from 'the company' has visited a couple of times to check progress. His handheld machine gives a digital read-out of the humidity of whichever surface he places it on. On a scale of 100, a wall reading of 77 is a soggy "hmm, oh dear, needs more", another wall reading of 49 is a progressive "ha-mmh, not bad", and 19 (wooden surface) is "yeah, almost there" (apparently anything less than 10 would make wood overly dry).


I've been told that drying-out machines aren't needed upstairs, because the humid air can still be sucked into the downstairs machines, whose heat (ha!) travels upstairs, thereby doing its job anyway. However, I observed that the machines are so heavy that even two men would have difficulty carrying one upstairs... and since only one man delivered the machines and the same one man would be returning for check-up visits, the truth of decision-making matter spoke for itself. Still, he assures me that the walls, ceilings and floors should be dry enough by the first week in May (coinciding with his return from two weeks' holiday), but I'll keep an eye on what his digital readouts have to say about it.

Apparently, the next steps in 'reinstatement' will need four weeks lead-in time (me choosing materials, colours, etc, and 'the company' eventually taking delivery of said materials), and eight weeks on the job once started. That takes me to August, and doubtless the workers will be off on holiday at unsynchronised times, so realistically August is the earliest.

There's still the possibility that I'll have to move out for a while, when there's no electricity, or during the very messy and dusty bits (for example, when my kitchen ceiling is taken down, and food prep becomes a no-no apart from picnicky stuff like slicing cheese, unwrapping choccies, uncorking a cold sauvignon blanc). My insurance cover allowed me to move out months ago to rented digs, but I'm not keen to leave AndyMac Castle - a Scotsman's castle is his home, after all, and where's the joy in abandoning your home only to live along the road and round the corner? The songbirds probably sound different along the road, and 'my' ladybirds, bees and butterflies would miss me terribly, I'm guessing. Maybe a few days will be enough, in a nearby hotel, with spa, or even one without spa (aka Castle Doran).

Time will tell.

Stripped out & Hacked off

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Put my foot in it... through it, in fact, followed by both legs and a bit more besides

Another disadvantage of having to sort out the loft was that the loft floorboards had to be removed, in order to remove the sodden insulation sitting between floorboards and ceiling below.

After moving boxes and boxes, and more boxes, a slippery beam proved no match for my adventurous footwork. I slipped, and put my foot through the ceiling, followed by both legs and a bit more besides. Luckily, a beam interfered with my downward trajectory - almost breaking my hip in the process.


The hole suitably made safe(ish), I was able to stand back and reflect... Now, I feel sorry for anyone who hasn't experienced the freefall joy of putting their foot etc through their ceiling (or, if they can pull it off, someone else's ceiling). It's a kind of domestic bunjee-jump, completely unexpected, and over before you can do anything about it. Also highly dangerous, of course, as I'll be advising when telling that story for years to come...

My big drip of a boiler

My big drip of a boiler (after the water had been turned off)

'Remove'

All over the house, walls are marked 'REMOVE' - plaster to be hacked off, down to the brick, in order to speed up the drying-out process. Walls will be replastered later.


The drying our process will be assisted by heaters and dehumidifiers spread out around the house. But the drying out will be slow going, at snail's pace for up to six weeks once the heaters are delivered...

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Why are my ceilings raining?

You know the feeling. It's December and cold outside, but dry at least. You arrive home, open your front door, and find that your ceilings are raining all over your sofa, bed, cooker...

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My modern combination gas boiler (for hot water and central heating) had sprung a severe leak in the loft, and was sprinkling cold water liberally around most rooms in the house.

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Why was the boiler in the loft in the first place? The 'old' boiler had been on the ground floor, in a corner of the kitchen. Just over a year ago, the installer of the 'new' boiler had advised tucking it away in the loft, where it would get on with its work quietly and unobtrusively. Nice theory; shame about the practice!