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So today we:

– Painted the ceiling (second coat)
– Painted the walls (second colour coat)
– Painted the other walls (second colour coat)

I then went out into the garden and moved approximately one tonne of bricks and hardcore from over here to over there. A total distance of about 8 feet. I separated out from the hardcore the sandy-pseudo soil (probably was mortar and soot once) and placed that strategically around the garden. The breezeblockery now has mud on it, and the two raised beds have some sandy ‘soil’ to aid drainage. We probably have enough that we could, in fact, do the drive way with our own hardcore. Need to check about whether that’s feasible, or how much a builder’d charge to do it, because it is a big ‘ol chunk of concrete and a wall taking down that we require.

Then I took down all but the top 3 layers of bricks of the approximately 1.2m wall which used to stand the other side of the concreted area in the garden, you can see it here:

Then I moved the blue 50 gallon container of rainwater* (about 1/3rd full) to the other end of the garden, out of the area of the raised bed (actually to roughly where I was standing when I took that photo, oh so long ago)…

Then the tonne of topsoil** arrived, bagged it may have been while it was on the truck, but the delightfully cheap delivery company didn’t actually have a crane to lift it off. So they tipped the lorry’s little tippy bit until the bag slid, falling onto its side and sprinkling earth all over the driveway. I can’t say I’m terribly impressed, but then their ungraded cheap topsoil is 25 quid, whereas everyone else wanted 70ish quid.

So, realising we couldn’t leave it there Kathryn and I then spent the next hour, in the drizzle, moving the top soil to the back garden. The first raised bed looks very, uh, raised-bed-y. The second one is more a ‘pile of earth’ motif, and the third, well, when we got to the stage we could drag the bag into the garden, it got dragged round the back and left. So the third is still devoid of soil. It maintains it’s breeze-block trim motif.

Still. It’s a lot of progress.

I (presumably, we) are very tired. And now I think I’m going to go to bed.

This, incidentally, is important:

* and bits of dead bird, and I have to wonder if the ?stolen MP3 player possibly got knocked in there by the builders. It just occured to me that I left it on the wall near the big drum, I wonder if one of them knocked it in and didn’t mention it. Still, we’ll find out when it’s empty, eh.
** With free brick components, wire, metal, roots… graded soil this ain’t.

So, progress has been good this week; we’ve painted all the walls and the ceiling once, a second coat on the ceiling (and Kathryn will be here to help with the ceiling tomorrow*, yay) and a second coat on the walls and the kitchen will be painted, less the woodwork. I’m going to paint the door frames later today, just want to make sure it has as long to dry as possible, because it says 16-24 hours to dry.

Once they’ve got undercoat on them all the woodwork in the kitchen will be ready to be painted. We can put one coat of that on tomorrow, take much of the coverings off, and then Friday we can paint the last of the woodwork, let it dry, and pop the fridge back in it’s normal home in the corner. But tomorrow evening we will get our kitchen back. Which is a good thing. Hopefully the paint fumes will abate soon, too.

But it has made such a change. The kitchen is much lighter and airier, even covered in dust sheets.

We have managed to create a weird optical illusion though, the green and sand paints meet on two corners; one, an internal corner, you can see the different colour paints quite distinctly. The other, an external corner which is really well lit, has the bizzare effect of making the two very different colours look the same. In fact it looks like it’s just shadow that’s making the one wall look a bit darker. it’s most strange.

Anyhow; I’m off to lug stones about in the garden.

* She was off doing her driving test today**
** Which she passed, because she rocks.

Linky: This looks fun.

We had a positive progress day, most of the kitchen walls are clean; most of the ceiling is washed; a good chunk of the paint is stripped. Plan is, over the next week:

– Order topsoil tomorrow
– Strip the rest of the door frames tomorrow morning and give them a light sand
– Wash the rest of the walls and ceiling
– First coat of primer on the walls and ceiling tomorrow, first coat of vicious primer on the skirting and wood, hopefully

Then over the next week we need to do coats of paint on the ceiling (x2), coats of paint on the walls (x2, hopefully) and coats of paint on the skirting and the woodwork (x2, again, hopefully). We also need to clear some rubble, potentially build a little rockery, mount the metal gates that were once the drive way gates in front of the shed (if we can, ready for some climbing plants, which’ll cover the grotty old shed base).

Saturday my mum’s coming to do the garden, and Sunday is for restification.

And that is our week, in short form.

So, today is house day, we’re not quite up and running yet although we’ve had our pancakes :)

I attacked the garden a bit more yesterday, spending about an hour separating bricks and laying them next to the path, I even took the old concrete edging off the path, the only problem is that I can’t easily justify the cost of gravel to cover the path. I suppose it should wait until the decking’s done anyway.

I’ve also been looking at topsoil which is a bit more pricey than I imagined. We need approximately 1 cubic meter of topsoil, which is quite a lot, when it comes to it. And basically ends up being 70 quid; unfortunately the company that’s cheapest can only do 3-4 days delivery, and I’m being screened for allergies on the 4th day, so we can’t have it delivered that day. I’m going to ring them tomorrow, ‘cos if they say ‘we can do it on day 3, definately’, then that’ll do. Otherwise they cost the same as everyone else.

My other plan is to ring the dubious company that’s local, and used to have a big sign up saying ‘topsoil’. I’m sure it’s no-where near such a good quality of soil, but if it’s cheaper and they can do it tomorrow or tuesday, that’d be a lot more convenient.

That should give us the veggie patch, anyhow. A nice raised veggie patch (or two). I’m suddenly contemplating a little rock-garden, too. Essentially, the plan as I have it, is to use up as much of the rubble as I can.

Wondering about filling in that front garden with concrete, most of it, anyhow (not very environmentally friendly, better for parking tho’). Would probably sell the house better though, 2 parking spaces, even if they’re just plain concrete and would definately be better with Kathryn’s car, my bikes, and Jejy and Rebecca trying to squeeze in. No way we can afford the current brick drive way fad though, so it would just be plain concrete..

Now, today is a different day. Hot air gun and removing the paint from the trim around the kitchen and larder door, and perhaps remove the hardboard from the larder door. Anyway, it’s time to get on.

We’ve been very good of late, cooking most nights, and cooking new and exciting things. So much so that we’re running out of recipes in the Vegetarian cookbook of choice; which has proven to be a fairly reliable meal producer, while some of the meals have been not-great (usually a great deal of work for not a great deal of excitement on the eating front), they’ve all been quite edible (with one notable exception).

Anyway, I’ve been meaning to share some of these cooking adventures on here, but the near death of my camera’s batteries has put me off doing so, but today’s lunch was so yummy looking (at least to us) that I spent several minutes shuffling the near dead batteries until my camera gave in and took one photo.

And here it is; yesterday’s frittata rewarmed, with home made soda bread, home made jam, fruit, and quorn eggs. Num num:

It’s labelled on flickr, here :)

Anyway, it’s probably getting on for time to cook our Calzones :)

Worrying: We’re going to Ireland for Kathryn’s birthday (and as an anniversary present). The passports aren’t back from the Home Office yet. Having rung them, and listened to their message, and checked the website, they won’t give you any further information about a query until 70 working days (‘we aim to process 90% of applications in 70 working days’).

We’re at just over 50.

Those of you who know when my birthday is, and when Kathryn’s is, will know that there’s not a *huge* amount of time ’til we go on holiday. Reports from a forum on immigration suggest that at 70 working days they’re unlikely to be able to tell you a great deal more about your application than it’s “in progress”.

Asking for your passports back is, apparently == I’d like to withdraw our application. I’m not deeply concerned, yet. Hopefully we’ll fall within the 90%. Neither of us are interesting in an immigration sense, I would have thought. I’m gainfully employed as is Kathryn. We don’t claim any benefits, we pay our bills and taxes…

But still. One can’t help but be a little nervous. Can you still travel to Ireland on a Driving Licence?

So, I’m not renown for my ability to manage money well. In fact, those who know me would probably be able to pitch my financial skills as something around the level of ‘hopeless’. It’s not really living beyond my means, it’s that I just don’t take enough care of my finances.

I should care more, but watching my parents struggle and save all their lives, only to have my dad die before he retired, it seems a bit difficult to care that much.

But I don’t want to drag Kathryn into my money pit, so I’ve been trying to sort them out a bit. Part of which was transferring some of the vast balance from the main credit card to a succession of low or no interest rate cards. These cards then lurk in the house and don’t get used. At least that was the theory.

To give you an idea of how bad I am at managing money, I didn’t notice that one of the balance transfers didn’t go through. In fact, I think that both of them haven’t gone through. I need to look back at my statements but I think I’ve been paying interest on money twice. Cunning, eh.

Thankfully, AmEx noticed that my other card never cashed the cheque. The good side of this is that I get to, somewhat suddenly, pay off a big chunk of the debt. I’ve got the interest payments back from AmEx too, so I’ve only paid the one huge amount of interest. But it’s somewhat frustrating.

Still, it means I’m in a better financial position than I thought…