Those lovely tiles are gone, the skip is nearly full, we now have french doors (wonder why they’re called that) where a window used to be, there’s a fine layer of dust over everything, and the builders, electrician and plumber have put a big dent in the teabag / milk / sugar / biscuit supplies. But they have worked very hard.
With a couple of days off work I have been mainly responsible for getting ripped-out kitchen units and various other bits of crap in the skip. Not much of a job, eh? Actually yes, because Adams Towers is located at the top of a narrow lane which the skip lorry couldn’t reach, so the skip is down on the avenue several hundred yards away. And this being England, it’s been raining. A lot. In the picture here, Adams Towers is the house at the top-right. The skip is located where the word ‘Avenue’ is. No, that’s not our swimming pool.
My other job was sorting out the cable to feed the new television – from the splitter box in the loft, through the airing cupboard (following the route of the old analogue cable) and into the ceiling cavity. The electrician took over at this point.
Speaking of the electrician, he discovered some real horrors. He basically condemned some of the outside light fittings, and found an extension double-plug socket attached to the main electrics using lighting cable (which is apparently a no-no). Our fuse board is no longer within UK regulations and will have to be replaced. Up goes the budget again.
It’s now that I realise that the kitchen really is the hub of family life. Although we’re managing okay with cooking in the dining room we feel a bit like refugees in our own house. And I can only start to imagine what it’s like for people who were forced out of their homes by flooding last year. At least this temporary ordeal was our choice.
We’re just about to have our bathroom and toilet done. If you think you have it hard having to cook in the dinning room, just imagine what we are going to have to do there.
So Ports, people are always banging on about how easy we have it today, but if this was the 1930’s you’d still have an outside privvy and thus you’d have somewhere to carry out your ablutions. And there’d be a tin bath in front of the fire. Mind you, you’d also have rickets and tuberculosis.
Darren,
I really don’t know, whether you remember my name. Actually we were colleagues in the good, old, not forgotten 1-2-3 for dos and symphony (of course for dos as well) times. I worked in the munich support center since 1990 and have been a couple of times in Staines. I’m pretty sure we met sometimes, but when, I cannot remember, you know Alzheimer “light” and this stuff.
I know work for a IBM business partner, mainly doing Lotus Notes support for some customers worldwide.
I just wanr´ted to say, that it is one of my greatest pleasures reading your stories a couple of times a week.
Keep on with this and all the best from sunny munich
Tom
Hi Tom… of course I remember you, good to hear from you. We did meet a few times, I remember going to a meeting just outside Paris – you were with your colleague Claudia, and I was with David Mingay, Sarah Martin and Bethan Fillis from the UK.
Crikey – there’s a blast from the past. Tom, I remember turning up to the Munich Support Centre for a course on DB2 (I came from the Warranty Support centre in the UK) – expecting it to be in English (because nobody had said otherwise). I seem to remember the whole thing was given in German. Lucky I paid attention during those 15 years of study then 🙂