Slaps forehead...

I decided this afternoon that I should tell the house insurance company about the impending conservatory and solar panels.
Then had a massive panic because I couldn't find the house insurance paperwork. Found last year's renewal and a letter from from the previous company saying "sorry you're leaving us" but nothing to replace it.
Eventually convinced myself I hadn't renewed it; found a quote from another company with what looked like a good price, but no policy. Rang a nice lady called Lorraine at their call centre - no policy there at all. She quoted me, again a great price, with no extra for the conservatory or the solar panels, and I was all set to pay up...
Then I saw a "new mail" alert in my "only give this to salesmen" hotmail account, which I don't use very much... It was from the motoring organisation who'd provided the car insurance this year... just a newsletter, but I started to wonder... After a bit of digging, I found an email there with all the documents attached for the policy I *had* taken out in August.
Am I going dotty or what?
And how foolish would I have felt if I had taken out another policy when I already had one?
Perhaps I should just retire to a nursing home and take up basket weaving now... not sure I am safe to be let loose with a computer...

Here comes the Sun, it's all right

Just had to review and re-write this one, as I realised I forgot to mention my next little bit of madness...
We decided it might be interesting to investigate solar power. I got the urge to do this just as the government cut the Feed In Tariff by half, mostly because I had never quite got around to finding out what to do, but nevertheless I thought it would be worth a look.
Solar-panel man number one came around to have a look and tell me what it would cost. He had a quick measure and gave me some draft figures. Unfortunately he turned up exactly the same time as a friend who wanted a quick surf of the net to chase up her visa application for her summer holiday, so it was all a bit fraught.

M and I looked at the figures, and it seemed like a pretty good deal, even at the lower tariff. Better than having the dosh in a building society, anyway. But we had a few questions, so I left solar-man#1 a message asking him for a few answers... he said he'd come back the next day to discuss.
He came, he answered, and I signed on the dotted line. It looks like a plan with no drawbacks, to be honest, there's nowhere else to put the money that will give the same return at the moment. Obviously, I will be cursing if interest rates climb, but I can't see that happening any time soon.

Having handed over my cheque, I was expecting a call within a day or so to tell me when the surveyor would be coming out to do the "full survey" so he could do the technical design... by the 23rd I was getting a bit impatient (who, me?) so I rang and asked what was going on? Yes, we've agreed, yes, we've paid a deposit. It's up to you, chaps, but as I said to the salesman, if it takes more than a couple of weeks you'll be scaffolding around the conservatory...
That did the trick. Scaffolding up a flat back wall will be much simpler - and more importantly cheaper - than scaffolding around the conservatory. Solar-man#2 will be out on Jan 4th!
 
Solar-man#2 dully arrived today to do the "full survey". He was twenty minutes late, but I hadn't started panicking at that point - I figured he might have a backlog after the terrible weather yesterday.

Doing the proper measurements meant him getting into the back garden with his ladders, which was a challenge because I hadn't arranged for a clear path through the garage... but we got through in the end. He measured and scribbled, measured some more and then scribbled some more. He drank a cup of coffee, said that his colleague would be back to me with some more accurate projected output for the installation, which would be more conservative than the numbers the salesman gave me... but still assured me that the output would be better than they predict. We shall see.
Despite him having said that he hadn't looked at the file, he knew that I'd asked them to get the array up before the conservatory arrives... and was confident that we'd be all set up and generating lovely sunshine electricity within three weeks! His last question as he left was "would a weekend install be ok?" - too blooming right it would!
He also pointed out where the lead flashing on next door's kitchen extension isn't quite where it should be, so I ran round to let them know as soon as solar-man had gone. I do hope that there wasn't too much of yesterday's monsoon pouring through the gap...
So far I am quite impressed with Solar-gang -they've been quite easy to deal with. As always, we shall see...

Day five...

All much brighter today, in terms of conservatory creation.  A small amount of angst when the cement mixer died... It took the fuse in the spur to the garage out, but by the time we'd decided that it was the mixer not the extension lead we'd blown a few more fuses, which meant me scuttling off to buy more to fix all the casualties.
Eventually someone turned up with another cement mixer, and all was well... They finished the job, built a nice step and instructed me to not walk on it all for at least two days...

In other, less happy news, a very dear friend is very very ill...

Conservatory - Day four - short and sweet.

They arrived at 7.45am.
They pronounced that "the ballast is frozen" and went away.
Sigh...

On a more positive note, spend Sunday making lots of presents... I might actually get this all done... that's this afternoon sorted then!

Day three part 2...

Half past ten and they're done for the day...

All that remains is a cement mixer and a small wall draped in hessian...

But there is fresh bread and the sun is shining. And they'll be back Monday morning!

The boys are back in town - day three

They were here bright and breezy at 8am... It's all blue and shiny now, albeit rather cold... there was a frost last night, as predicted by a friend last night - he got me all despondent by providing education on the chemical process that creates concrete from sand and cement... which I did actually know... and highlighting how the whole process comes undone if the water in the mix freezes before it sets.  But there was no new stuff yesterday so there was no problem with the frost this morning, and by the time it gets cold again this evening the stuff will have done what it needs to do.  So I am happy now.

A note to house builders - why do you ALWAYS lay the sewer across the back of new houses so that the access manhole is RIGHT in the way of a conservatory? I mean, do you do it on purpose?  Do you sit at your works parties laughing about it?  "Huh, them getting plot 73 think they are up for a pretty Victorian job on the back - wait until they find out that manhole's right in the way of where they are bound to want the wall, so they'll end up with a conservatory six feet wide".  And even when the damn thing is not where the wall wants to go, or by some stroke of luck you miss it by a couple of centimetres, the manhole has to be lifted and sealed, and then there is the pain of always needing to be able to get access to it - just in case - which messes up almost any decisions about flooring to be laid.  Well, you didn't quite get it right with this one - look, we just managed to get the damn thing inside the conservatory without having to go out any further - four inches further from the house and we'd have either had a much smaller conservatory or had to go through the planning process.  So thanks and yah booh this time!.
I feel better for the rant, thanks for bearing with me!

They've started the wall around the base, now, and are engaged in creating the little wall around the sewer access so that it can be raised to the level of the new floor... I don't know how much they will do today, but will report again later.

Now off to try and get some sort of Yuletide feelings about the place.  I know it's a bit late in the year, but I found some frozen sloes in the freezer, so they've been added to the gin this morning... I found some blackberries too, so a trip out to buy vodka is indicated - but for now I need to hit the sewing machine.

Ciao for now!

Day 2 part 2

Within an hour of the chaps leaving, the rain dried out and the sun shone for the rest of the day.
They didn't come back...

Conservatory - day 2

Sort of...

They were here at 8am... Actually they were here at 7.45, but I was still sat in bed cuddling a coffee and trying to muster the energy and enthusiasm to face the day. Astonishing how the sound of a builders' lorry arriving can galvanise things, isn't it! So I bounded downstairs, rushed out to move the car off the front of the drive - to find rain. Not stair rods - not a monsoon - just a steady, insistent, all-pervading drizzle.
They did their best, poor lads, they unloaded all the materials from the lorry and stacked them under the car port, they sloshed around the swamp and prodded yesterday's concrete... they struggled manfully for an hour in the rain, and then they gave up. The forecast suggests that the rain is set to stay and people slightly further west than here are saying that they are getting some snow falling, which wouldn't help at all.

It's not so big a deal as the actual assembly of the conservatory isn't scheduled until January - they happened to have a slot with some lads free for a few days to fit the base build in this side of the festive season, so they thought they'd get it done now. The glas panels are still being manufactured, so there's no great pressure to get it done this week. They will be back tomorrow - we'd already agreed that they'd work tomorrow - but I don't expect they'll be finished, so that means Monday, and I was hoping to take Monday off and head for Wales. And we do want to be able to put all the stuff back in the garage at some point.

Ah well...

You've got to have a dream

If you don't have a dream, how'ya gonna have a dream come true?

For years I have had this dream. Not a very romantic or unusual one, perhaps it's a daft thing to dream about... but I always wanted a conservatory. Once, long ago, in a previous life at a previous house, I even got as far as getting the money together and going out and looking at the things. On the back of the dining room, that was where it was going. Then one day we went out and came back with a boat. A narrowboat. A very nice narrowboat, but nonetheless, a boat not a conservatory. A boat that cost four times what my blooming conservatory was going to cost, at that. Sigh.

This is actually larger than our house

I decided a few weeks ago that a conservatory would be a great addition to our little house... We don't have a dining room, and if I ever set the dining table up in the living room with all six chairs around it there isn't actually enough room to walk around it. We have had a dinner party here - just the one - and while watching my long-suffering guests attempting to clamber over each other to get onto their chairs was pretty entertaining, and watching one poor soul performing a limbo under the table in order to get to the loo was comedy gold! - the whole thing was less than ideal. Dinner parties since then have consisted of dinner served on a tray and eaten while sitting on the sofa. Not exactly the understated elegance I was hoping for..

Conservatory by Kayvex

What we need, I reasoned, is a conservatory. A nice glass room, with a lovely view of the junkyard swamp war-zone shed garden, where we can sit comfortably with a cocktail, and then dine under the stars. Somewhere for the cool evenings after the summer barbecues. A room where we could have a party with more than two guests! Sounds good, doesn't it? I must have been pretty convincing because M agreed to the project! I'm not quite sure, if I am honest I suspect that it might have been just to stop me rattling on about it, but anyway, the thing is that he did agree...

There used to be a triffid there

Of course, before the thing could happen, some of the swamp debris features of the garden had to be removed - a couple of surplus shrubs which had been showing a marked tendency towards world domination needed to go, and some of the junk wreckage important collection of historic motor parts had to be rehomed... There was also the minor detail that there's no rear access to our house - the only way into the garden is either through the house or the garage, which is mostly full of motorcycles. So having agreed to this madness the poor bloke found himself spending his precious weekend performing a massive, if long-overdue clean-up operation. In a howling gale, torrential rain and freezing cold to boot. I've been telling him that it's all going to be worth it - he keeps giving me that look...

Well... The lads arrived this morning at an awfully early hour. Actually it probably wasn't that early, but nevertheless, grovelling apologies to my neighbours, who were treated to the sound of the concrete mixer and barrows being unloaded about 8am, the skip being delivered about 10 and the patio being ripped up in between. They dug a trench and filled it with concrete. And then they went away. Not much they can do until what they've done is set, so they will be back at 7.30 tomorrow to do some more. Hopefully it won't require so much noise - but I can't be sure.

What am I going to dream about when it's finished?
I am sure I will think of something!

Busy busy busy

But mostly in a good way, I think!
I got the vital birthday present finished and wrapped up in time to take it to the midlands on Sunday morning - we were up and about scarily early, M was muttering that we were half an hour late leaving and it was all going to be terrible, but we were still on the road by 8.45am and there by 12, so at three hours it was a pretty average journey and shouldn't be moaned about.
We took his girls out for lunch at a pub in a village near where they live.  It was a very nice roast, and not too expensive, although despite the flash website with restaurant menu it's pretty much a locals pub, and the atmosphere was a little bit strange... the place was empty when we got there so we were settled in before any of the regulars arrived, but there were a few raised eyebrows at the presence of strangers... but we were pretty well off the beaten track, so it was probably a rare occurrence.
It seems strange to go and see his girls and take them to the pub, with one of them driving us there... it seems about a couple of months since we were visiting them and looking for parks and playgrounds to entertain them, although it's a fair number of years now!  The stress of SATS has long since given way to the angst of A-levels and the upheavals of university.  It seems a short time since my daughter was fighting her way towards GCSEs, now she's a grown woman watching her own kids doing the same...

This morning, I locked myself in the little hut at the bottom of the garden which serves as my office these days, and was just settling down to work when M appeared in a slightly agitated state... Conservatory Man had just turned up at the door, and announced he was meeting with the neighbours, and would we please come and join him... M was in the process of getting into the car to go to work, hence his agitation, so I said I would go... as we headed to the door, Conservatory Man and his chum (who I suspect is actually his boss!) arrived on the doorstep, all smiles and happy faces - "All sorted, they are very happy, no problem at all" - they'd walked in, sat down, listened to the neighbours' concerns and been able to explain how each of them was going to be catered for.  The neighbours agreed that work could start next week and everything in the garden was metaphorically rosy!
Naturally, as soon as Conservatory Man had driven around the corner I rushed next door to check that they were really happy... he does have a vested interest in making me believe they are happy, but they are actually not just our neighbours, they are our friends and we want to be sure that they are completely happy with no residual doubts.  Anyway, they certainly seem to be, they were still laughing about how earnest Conservatory Man had been!  So we are all on course for the base to be laid next week, with the actual conservatory being erected some time in early January, as soon as the panels have been manufactured.  This means that there will be a series of dinner parties, parties and general festivities just as soon as I have a place to put the dining table where there is actually space to get the chairs around it - yee hah!

It's dark now... it's not even 5pm and it's properly dark.  I might just slope off from the studying that I am supposed to be doing and sneak myself a nice hot bath.  It's 2CV club Christmas Party no 1 tonight... no idea what I ordered, I remember ticking things off on a menu ages ago, ah well, it will be a surprise!

In other news

There was a small panic yesterday when I realised that the car had just had a birthday - the third one - meaning it needed to have an MOT certificate.  The day before yesterday... this lead to something of a panic this morning as I rang around the local garages, and managed to get an instant appointment - phew!  It passed, thankfully, which shouldn't have been in any doubt given that it's three years old...  Just glad it's sorted anyway.

Conservatory news is still on hold - we talked to our neighbours about the project, and while they are not opposed in principle they are concerned about us fixing the structure to the wall of their extension.  I'm sure it's not an insurmountable problem, and the contractors are coming round to meet with them next week to discuss their concerns and hopefully reassure them that actually the conservatory will be protecting their wall rather than putting it in any danger.  If we can't get over this issue then it's not a show-stopper - we can build the thing free-standing instead of fixing it to the wall, it'll be a bit smaller and it'll cost a bit more, but not so much that it threatens the whole thing.  We just need to get the decision made so that the guys know what they are doing when they come to lay the base in just over a week's time.  I called the contractors and they said they'd come and visit the neighbours, so I ran back next door and handed over my phone so that they could agree a time... hopefully there will be an answer on Monday or Tuesday .

Still frantically trying to create a birthday present for No 2 stepdaughter... we're off to visit tomorrow and I am still working on my creation...