Tuesday 1 March 2011

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the bathroom...

... you find sharks circling there still.   Yes:  my partner and I are STILL beset by "builders".  I was awakened this morning by the sound of my pretty young neighbour, Rosie, shouting at some of the very same fellows about some damage which they had inflicted in her house.  I was rather intrigued to listen, actually.  I have only ever managed to get a few words out of her myself, before she starts shyly giggling and then runs away.  She does stare at me a lot though, and always comes to the fence to see if I am in my garden - but always with the same resulting giggles and evasion.  Mad.  As I ear-wigged on the proceedings I was pleasantly surprised to find that she was quite articulate.  Her voice was so sweet and melodious, however, that it was odd to hear her using it to be angry.  I totally agreed with the West Highland lassie, however.  Here is a summation of what has happened since I last barked with you, dear reader :-

Work continued to progress slowly, on occasion because contractors forgot to put units on their lorry when leaving the depot (a series of little notes left in the kitchen for my partner revealed the truth - although the kitchen bloke was nice (and quite handsome, according to my partner, although that is no excuse as far as I am concerned).  I am prepared to be generous with regard to the kitchen fellow, however, as he also left little notes for ME.  He is therefore forgiven for his part in these crimes.


Following a request from the contractors', my partner and I agreed that their decorators could work in the property over Saturday 19 February as they were so far behind. That morning, however, prior to the decorators’ arrival, we found another leak in the bathroom.  Happily, however, the decorators were able to fix the leak.  These gentlemen (said decorators) were Polish, with a smattering of English, but both delightful young men with a high quality of professionalism, work ethic, and resulting finished tasks.  The decorating was the only part of the whole business which has, thus far, proceeded without a hitch.  I could comment further - I choose not to.
The whole process thus far had been extremely irritating and distressing. But I was sadly mistaken in my belief that my partner and I had seen the worst of the business.
On the evening of Thursday 24 February my partner and I arrived home after a night out to discover more water on the bathroom floor. It seemed to have originated from the bathroom radiator, which was now positioned at a distinctly slanted angle to how it was formerly fixed to the wall, although I could not detect any more water coming from the radiator pipe at that time. At the same time, my partner noticed that two large boxes which had been placed in front of our bedroom door had been moved (the one formerly at the bottom was now on the top and vice versa). I followed my partner into our bedroom and was, quite frankly, stunned by what I found. Our duvet was absolutely saturated.  And, for once, I was NOT to blame (indeed, not even a Blue Whale has that much wee in him).  When my partner touched the duvet, water readily seeped out.  It was abundantly clear what had happened – the bathroom pipes had obviously been leaking once more, presumably more seriously this time and whoever was in the room at the time had gone into our bedroom and taken the duvet from the bed to stem and mop-up the water.  As if this were not bad enough, the soaked duvet was then placed back on our bed!

Water had soaked from the duvet through my sheets and into my mattress.  The duvet and bed-sheets were filthy, smelly and water-stained.  As it was late at night, my partner and I had no option but to sleep on the floor with a cushion and a blanket (actually, my partner slept on the floor - I slept in my comfy armchair, but don't tell my partner that).  My partner has had to throw our duvet away as goodness only knows what the water was contaminated with, but it was extremely unpleasant.

Alas, that is STILL not the end of the matter.  Our blundering builders had forgotten to re-install our washing machine yet again, so another weekend without that - we had to go back to my partner's parents' house in order to do a load of washing so that my partner could have clean knickers.  I wondered aloud as to why she didn't follow my sartorial example - but, apparently, there are different laws for humans in this country...

We had to telephone the contractors again yesterday morning for yet another leak in the bathroom, from the same radiator pipes.  And now?  NOW?  We have water from the taps; we have a new, clean duvet (provided by my partner's mother); we have heat from our boiler and cupboards in our kitchen.  What we don't have is half a bath and no water whatsoever from the shower.

AND - if all this weren't enough - today, at work, I got a telling-off and a spanked bottom - all in front of Ewan.   Grrrowl.  I'm going to go and sniff-out my partner's emergency Vodka supply.

Dear friends, I am very cross indeed.

Good (ha!) night.