Artex. Do you know the stuff I mean? It’s a skim of plaster that has been ‘textured’ and then painted. It looks horrible. It was popular in the 70s.

Roger’s bungalow has lots of it, on ceilings and on walls. Hilde has been attacking the stuff on the wall with a steamer. She started off with a product that claimed to be ‘artex remover’, which is entirely harmless to the user and the environment. Sounds good. Unfortunately, it is entirely harmless to the artex as well. Steaming and slow scraping seems to do it.

Meanwhile, Alex and Roger have been putting plaster boards in gaps in ceilings and partitions.

Westacre Day minus 36

Hilde was quite impressed when she saw the progress at the bungalow since Sunday. The boiler is in and the central heating is working. Alex has put in a new floor in the kitchen. And Roger has made repairs to the ceiling mishap from last week.

In the meantime, contact has been made with a window company to put new windows in the Harrow house. And some more stuff has gone into boxes.

All good stuff.

Westacre Day minus 37

While Roger was repairing the gap in the ceiling where there once used to be a partition wall, Alex laid batons and Celotex for the kitchen floor. And once there is a floor, who knows what other miracles might happen.

Hilde is counting down the days at City Lit (10 days to go, spread over 4 weeks) and is disappointed with the window company who have failed to get back to her so far.

Westacre Day minus 38

Alex took it easy today, with a shorter day’s labour. He repaired some damage done to the bungalow rafters by the guy who fit the boiler yesterday. Then he attacked the kitchen floor and took it back to the original concrete, ready for an insulated chipboard floor to go in.

Hilde called a window company with a view to replacing the rotten wooden windows in Harrow. She also interviewed a prospective German tutor for City Lit, and answered many e-mails.

Westacre Day minus 39 today, but let me tell you about yesterday…

It was all going very well, better than I had expected. Even though I’ve had a bad experience with tiling before, I had said I was going to have a go at tiling the bathroom in the bungalow, and I was doing OK. I prepped the walls. I measured and measured again and made some decisions. I had got the scary tile cutter out of its box and got it going. I cut some tiles. I mixed some tile adhesive.

When it came to stick the tiles to the wall, my prejudices against this job were confirmed: I truly, passionately and without reservation hate tiling. There may have been tears.

You need to get the things on the wall straight and level. The adhesive needs to be of equal thickness. There has to be enough of it but not too much. You have to get the lines straight, of course. And you have to somehow keep the front of the tiles clean of adhesive. Tell you what: It is impossible. Alex had to rescue me.

In the evening, I travelled back to Harrow on the train. Everything was going well, and I got off at Watford Junction for my last connection. I got on the wrong train, that hurtled straight past my stop to London Euston. Where there was no way to get back to my stop except on a slow train that terminated way short of my destination, plus a tube train, plus a rail replacement bus service.

I arrived home 1.5 hours after I should have done, thoroughly miserable and stressed.

By contrast, today the boiler was installed in the bungalow, which now has full central heating. We won’t have to work in the cold.

Westacre Day minus 43

Hilde left the house in Harrow all neat and tidy before setting off for Westacre. She is feeling very tired from missing out on sleep – life is a bit too interesting at the moment. Alex was having a rest from three hard days tightening up radiator connectors. Roger went shopping and fed us and his friends a delicious meal and pudding.

Roger and Alex have chosen a laminate floor for the bungalow living room. Alex has been fighting with the radiator valves, but he’s hopeful they’re finally on and not leaking.

Meanwhile, in London, Hilde interviewed prospective Dutch and German tutors and answered questions from her new colleague.

Westacre Day minus 46

Alex is finishing off the plumbing in the bungalow, installing the radiators ready for the gas boiler to go in next week. He’s using compression joints and is not getting on with them very well. Hilde has been at her day job, giving advice to a beginning language teacher. Roger has been drawing a sparrow with pastels in his art class.

Westacre Day minus 46

Hilde and Gerjan brought the ladder back to the hire shop first thing. Then Hilde went into London to work, and Gerjan set to taking the garden waste to the dump and cleaning up the very slippery decking. He’s done wonders these last few days. We’d love to see him again.

Alex is back at Westacre. He tested Matt’s plumbing and none of it leaked. He and Roger also took trips to the dump, but mostly with rubble and plaster board. Hopefully, that will be the last major dump trip for the bungalow.

Westacre Day minus 48

After hiring a ladder and doing some cleaning, Hilde went to say goodbye to the London Tamesis Druid group. She had a beautiful ceremony with beautiful people on a carpet of golden leaves. Alex made good the walls in the toilet and papered them with lining paper. Gerjan has started the job of repairing our windows, but he’s finding more rot than we’d hoped. It might be new window time in Harrow as well.