Weekend dead ends
You know when you think you’ve been really busy and you check back and you don’t seem to have done much. Well that was the weekend that was.
I’ll hold my hand up to not doing that much on Friday afternoon but Saturday was extra special busy, so how come I achieved so little.
I booked Friday off and I had a bunch of visits scheduled in so I was hoping to get lots done.
Plan 1: Sandra and Russell visiting with my parents to have a look around and help on some work on the garden. Reality: Well it was blinking awful weather so we ditched the garden work and just did a bit of a bumble around the house. They were lovely though and brought over a chainsaw and a log splitter for me to try out and borrow. It was great to have them over to show them what I’d done, unfortunately what I’d done so far didn’t show that much in bricks laid and walls demolished, so unless they imagined all the zillions of tiny jobs I’d achieved so far they were unlikely to be very impressed. It was really nice though, I had a good fire going and we all sat around it in the living room and tucked into some cakes and quiche they’d brought over for lunch. I got on with some work showing some people around on other jobs but I lapsed into laziness for the rest of the afternoon once they’d gone, lulled by the open fire and the quiche aftershocks.
Part 2: Ventola visiting to assess sash windows and quote on their renovation. Reality: Well it was all great, the chap Doug who showed up was on time and quite lovely. We paraded around my windows and he’d stick his screwdriver into the woodwork and explain what had to be done. All was going reasonably well till we got to the main bays where we found them to be a bit rotten toward the bottom. I was hoping for the quote to be around £3.5k but I’ve just got the quote this Monday evening and it turned out to be just brimming over £9k for two bay windows, one large arched stained glass window and three small sash windows. He did err on the cautious side with his estimates and he did say that they would be more than likely to be cheaper as not all of the windows would require sill replacements, but whatever the case I doubt seriously that I could afford this service. I reckon I should check out the carpenter who did the work on my mate Don’s house. I was basing my cost estimate on my optimism and the show in which Ventola had renovated Sarah Beeny’s manor house sash windows on a budget, I perhaps might have worse sashes, or struck when Ventrola are basking in lots of business – and can charge more – or perhaps I’m not as attractive as Sarah Beeny?
Part 3: Alan Sandick’s mate Ray turning up to do an estimate on the building work that needs to be done. Well Ray did that and more, nice guy, him and his grandson followed me around the house, listened to my babbling and came up with suggestions on what needed doing. He also offered a quotation on the work required to fix the garage roof felt and his grandson told his granddad that I reminded him of an Uncle who’d emigrated to Australia. I ventured that he’d had to go because of all the women chasing him for his good looks and everyone just didn’t laugh at all. Turns out that the insurance firm use their own assessors and builders so Ray’s out of luck on that one. Apart from that the reality was just right and he did just what it said on the tin. Monday and still waiting for quotation though I know it’ll turn up.
Part 4: Thermal store being delivered on Friday. Reality: No sign of store on Friday, no reply to emails asking whereabouts of thermal store on Friday. Saturday got an email from Matt explaining he’d had an accident on Tuesday damaging his ribs and had been bed ridden and painkiller filled since that day…. Hence missing thermal store. I had a bunch of reassurances, bit my lip – I know that he’s genuine despite this being the second delay (fell off the forklift first time) – and offered today to take another Friday off to receive it and accompanying freebies to pacify me.
Part 5: Ordered three bags of coal to be delivered on Friday, reality: no coal arrived.
Other odds and ends.
Phoned in insurance for insurance on roof. Cocked up to start with and informed them of the wrong day it had happened, I quickly reassured them I’d made a mistake as the day I’d mistaken wasn’t windy enough to justify a claim. Got a voicemail from what I assume was the assessor and accidently deleted it. So all in all a bit of a cockup from start to end, I’ve been told too that the excess is £150 and that they won’t cover the job if they feel the felt is a bit ancient.
Washing up, washing clothes, washing bed linen, washing two quilts I’d murdered in the great fireplace removal disaster. Ordered some ladders, cleaned my boots, sorted out my pills and potions for all my fitness exertions (sounds weird but it’s only stuff to stop my knees packing in when I run etc.). Undertook a major exercise and sorted out the boot of my car that had been suffering because of a leak from a bottle of oil, I had to basically towel down everything, wash everything and then I reorganised it all before I put it all back together. Did lots of paperwork too, some working on the internet, some more catching up on blogs and rounded it off with a late night steak, mushrooms, tommies and a fried egg. All this doesn’t sound much for a Saturday and Friday but it really was a lot of work and I’m proud of what I achieved. Still there’s still little to see of work done on the house, but this preparation and getting budgets and planning sorted is just as important as knocking walls down. Honest.
Spent Sunday at the folks with Izzi, Mum, Dad, Sandra and Russell.
A very nice day off after all the slog. Perhaps this coming weekend I can achieve a little bit more in the way of physical work and actually get more of my main jobs jobbed. Hopefully a thermal store will turn up, an engineer will fix my Sky broadband and I can get the main windows booked in.