Saturday 16th August - Shock! Alert!

Yesterday evening at around 9.30pm I was lolling in a chair catching up on episode two of Vsn Der Walk when my phone let out this horrible and terrifying alarm sound, the sort that I associate with James Bond films where the building will explode in 30 seconds unless Mr Bond can defuse the bomb and everyone else runs in all directions at once...

It really was that alarming. 

Unfortunately, in my confusion and alarm and desperationto make the noise stop, all I saw was the little underlined word 'OK' at the bottom of the verbiage, so I clicked on that, even though I was definitely NOT ok and the noise did stop - bliss - but the words disappeared so I had no idea what that was about. 

My ignorance didn't last long though, as the alarm came on again. This time I had enough nouse to turn down the volume and read the message. 

The government had sent out an alarm to  mobile phones (BB sitting next to me didn't receive one) telling us not to use barbecues, fireworks, garden incinerators, firepits or to light any bonfires, and dispose of cigarettes carefully. 

That really shouldn't need saying... but it's the school holidays, and everyone is out and about,  and camping, and picnicking, and having a good time... they don't call it the silly season for no reason. 

...

There's nothing to show on the extension except the last wall is up, 

and they are now getting prepped to do the roof. Actually, if I pause a moment,  having all three walls completed in one week, by just two men, is fast work compared to how long it took our neighbours to get to this stage last year.

Yesterday was entirely measuring, checking, measuring, rereading the plans and documentation...

They had three issues to resolve; 

The first was relatively straightforward; a smallish triangular piece that they couldn't find anywhere on the plans. That was because it shouldn't have been included in the shipment. Solution; chuck it in the waste pile.

The second is the big window forming most of the end wall. For some reason it is going to fix straight onto the wall of the house, rather than there being a vertical panel at that end. It's not a big problem, but does make setting everything up for getting the roof panels perfect a bit trickier. 

You can see a sort of pillar at the left hand side of the window space; if there had been something similar at the right hand side life would have been a lot simpler. And maybe cheaper... the safety glass for that window is very expensive. Oh well, it's done now, and the installers have worked out what to do 

The third problem is the soil pipe from the bathroom. There had been a lot of discussion about moving it to the corner of the house, and it seems that the final situation is that we (the builders, architect and us) agreed it would stay as it was, and the hup! contractors thought it was being moved. Height ho. The installers have worked out a fix, and ordered a bit of panel, and say all will be well. 

Meanwhile two days of peace over the weekend. We can sit out in the shell of our extension and 'play house' if we like!