Week three

Summary of third week: walls go up, roof comes off. That's about it.

Bricklaying Ulf continued to build the exterior walls, and there was some careful discussion of how the new wall facing the garden needs to be vertical and square otherwise the doors and windows won't fit or close properly, but the old wall which abuts it is quite significantly not vertical. The final decision was to make it match exactly at the top so it would be more straightforward to put the roof on, but it would have to be bodged somehow at ground level.

Son of Ulf was allowed to build the interior wall, which is made of breeze blocks rather than lovely bricks. Blocks of insulating material are slotted in the cavity for the new walls away from the garden, and the garden wall has almost no cavity but will have insulating material on the inside. There was another round of consideration when it came to the lintels above the new doors and windows, but when I got home on Thursday these were in place. I hate missing the exciting bits. Nothing much happened building-wise on Tuesday, although I did go for a nice walk with a friend and discovered a new tearoom in Leamington which I must visit again. It is most important to keep abreast of the lunch opportunities in town.

Congratulating myself on organising sufficient underwear for nearly three weeks without a washing machine, I visited the launderette this week, having prepared by finding out what coins were required and building up a stock of change. Considering that home washing machines can take several hours to do a wash I was prepared for a long wait, but these commercial machines were finished in less than half an hour. I don't really approve of tumble dryers but I made a special exception for the current circumstances, which was a good investment as there really was quite a lot of washing and I don't have the space for drying it all round the house. I had thought about taking laundry round to friends or colleagues or even to mum and dad, but it only took an hour altogether and I can easily last for another three weeks now. In six weeks time I should have a working washing machine again. If all goes well, anyway.

On Friday they took the remainder of the roof off, leaving the boiler covered with some strong plastic sheeting held down with bricks. I was away all weekend but the boiler still works, so that's nice.

The Maryland choc chip cookies were very well-received, and I may have to dispose of the remaining digestives and Hobnobs as they are going a bit soggy. Biscuit consumption plummeted last week and I don't know why, because bourbons are still available.

The second week

Summary of week 2: the foundations are completed, a new wall rises and old walls disappear. A stair disaster is averted, my pipes and the site are inspected, then it rains a lot.

I was sorry not to be around on Monday because there were further developments around the expensive pipe. Someone came round to put a camera down it, and I would have been most interested to see how that was done. Anyway, the verdict is that the pipe is intact, it serves only my property so that means Severn Trent don't have to be involved and it will cost slightly less money. They have added an extra rodding point, so that's nice.

The door between the kitchen and the rest of the house is now blocked off, with access to the building site now through the French doors in the living room or the garden gate. Son of Ulf started to demolish some walls, and although many bricks were damaged they have retrieved some that survived intact, including some that are stamped 'Leamington Brick Co'. These are being re-used in the new walls. Two pallets of new bricks were delivered, and a small cement mixer appeared. I have covered my living room with dustsheets.

Bricklaying Ulf arrived and started to build new walls once Son of Ulf had been sent to fetch the right bricks (the wrong ones were delivered). Bricklaying Ulf is not a talker, but we exchange a few comments and he is happy to share bricklaying tips and shows me how the new wall is attached to the old. He prefers strong tea, one sugar. A small cement mixer appears, and the other Son of Ulf seems to be in charge of supplying Bricklaying Ulf with mortar.

Then they started taking the old roof off, but only took half away leaving shelter for the lonely boiler still in its old place, and also for Team Ulf when the heavens opened all of Thursday. The floor in the extension bit has been filled and a damp-proof membrane laid, and apparently it has also been inspected. It's a pity I'm not around for these visits, but I wouldn't be surprised if Ulf would prefer customers and inspectors not to meet, especially customers who ask a lot of questions like I do. 

But then it was extremely lucky that I did start to ask questions about the stairs, which are also due to be replaced. Ulf the Stairs came to measure up on another day when I wasn't around, and then I had to discuss newel posts and handrails with Ulf and it suddenly became apparent that the stairs were to be made out of MDF, which is most definitely not what I want. A good thing that this came to light before the stairs had actually been made. They take pains to give me choices of irrelevant things like the colour of the skypod which can't be seen by anyone, but then make huge assumptions about stair materials. And it turns out that I can't choose the skypod colour anyway because the building inspection specified aluminium, which I did point out at the time.

Four family-sized packs of bourbons have now been devoured (one pack went in a single day), the digestives hardly touched, and the Hobnobs seem to be grudgingly acceptable. I will be supplementing the bourbons with Maryland choc chop cookies next week.

Buddhism for a beginner

Krakow Botanic Gardens, July 2016

Since my local group was offering another series of introductory sessions for people new to meditation, I started going to Birmingham Buddhist Centre for a six-week course entitled 'Going Deeper', all about the Noble Eightfold Path (don't ask). This is aimed at those who are fairly new to meditation and Buddhism who might just have finished the introductory course. I've been meditating for a bit longer than this, but I don't consider myself to be an expert by any means, and the group in Leamington is too small to offer this type of course. The Birmingham Centre has a much greater attendance - there are three different groups running on a Tuesday alone.

To start the evening we do some meditation, and because there are quite a lot of new people there's a lot of spoken guidance which distracts me. And someone in the room breathes so loudly and deeply that I am sure they have fallen asleep. Then there's a tea break, and then there's the talking and instructional bit.

I do not enjoy it very much. The problem lies somewhere on the continuum between my desire for very concrete and practical ideas, the two leaders' teaching skills, and the course being designed and written by someone else entirely. Much of their guidance just makes no sense to me. Here's an example I've made up: "Open your emotional state to connect with something deeper." I know what all the individual words mean, and I think get the gist of what is meant, but I have no idea how to carry out the instruction. I'm prepared to believe that some people in the room do know what to do with this stuff, but a part of me just thinks it's the Emperor's New Clothes and nobody has a clue what they are talking about.

Up to now I've found Buddhist principles to be eminently sensible and applicable to improving the quality of my life, as well as being likely to make other people and the planet feel a bit better too. So I want to know a bit more than just the two main sorts of meditation, and at the moment it feels like smoke, a cloud, a shadow - there's probably something there but I can't grasp it. And words like 'transcendence', 'self-enlightenment', 'conditioned existence' don't help in the least, and nor does the fact that the words for the concepts being described come from Eastern languages with no direct English translation.

My difficulty is somewhat exemplified by the two main types of meditation. One is called 'Mindfulness of Breathing', and I understand how to do it because it's all about doing - focussing and maintaining attention on the breath, in and out. That makes sense. The other doesn't even have an English name, it's called 'Metta Bhavana' and translates into something like 'the development of lovingkindness'. Instead of focussing on something physical like breathing it's aim is to foster a feeling, or an attitude, and I simply can't work out how that's done. Either I feel, or I don't. I'm probably not consciously aware of all the attitudes I hold. How does one create a feeling or an attitude by sitting and thinking about it?

I wasn't sure what to do with this frustration about the Birmingham course. My experienced Buddhist friend gave me a few tips, and I carried on to week 4 in case it became clear, and because despite the distracting spoken guidance and noisy breathing I still like meditating. But week 4 was about, well, I'm not sure what it was about, but we looked at some pictures and talked about archetypes, and the sun and moon as opposites, and what a halo represents, and how sitting on the ground makes you grounded, and I couldn't take it any more.

So I went back to the Leamington group and it felt like coming home. I felt welcome, and included, and best of all I understood the gist of the discussion, which was about four aspects of mindfulness (self, others, things, reality) and it seemed to make sense. I will probably try again with the Birmingham option but will take more care with my choice of group next time.

It has started

The big day has arrived: Ulf and his henchmen are labouring in the garden, taking drinks with two sugars and devouring many, many biscuits. I am very pleased that I thought of buying the biscuits. I am also going to have to buy a bag of sugar.

It started at 7.30 with a phone call - they were already outside and were wondering why I wasn't answering the door. They'd been using the knocker rather than the bell so I hadn't heard them, but at least I'd paid attention to the casual message "See you at 7.30-8.00" and was up and dressed. On my day off. At 7.30 a.m.

By 10 a.m. I was shattered. Not that I'd done much except make tea, but the early start on a Tuesday after badminton on Monday night was harder than I had anticipated. I'd worked hard to clear the kitchen but they started outside, pulling up the brick paving in preparation for digging foundations. The henchmen are doing most of the work, and I have decided to name them both Sons of Ulf - one of them is actually Ulf's son and the other might as well be because I can't tell the difference. They were introduced to me at the same time and I will probably never work out which name belongs to which, but they seem cheerful enough. There was a small cheer when I mentioned the biscuits.

I met another man who supplies the roof lantern and the external doors and windows. It turns out that it will be a 'sky pod' rather than a roof lantern (Google if you want to know the difference) which will be handy if I ever want to do any space travel. Although a sky pod is actually much less exciting than it sounds. I was even offered a choice of colours, but making any more choices may tip me over the edge into insanity. So it will be white.

The skip has been a bit of a problem. Normally by mid-morning the road is pretty clear of parked cars as everyone goes to work. Not this morning - all the closest parking spaces are filled with cars. Where to put the skip? We decided to put it in front of my garage for the time being. The full skip was due to be replaced by an empty one the next day, so I talked to my neighbours about leaving a free space.

Ulf and Sons of Ulf left at around 4 p.m. and I went to bed and slept for an hour before going off to this new Buddhist class. Of which more later.

Day 2 (there won't be this level of commentary throughout the project) and I have realised that it is foolish to consider £25 too much to pay for an extra parking pass when the whole project is costing tens of thousands. However, when I ring the authorities it isn't so simple. Each resident can only have one £25 visitor pass. Further parking dispensations are available per day, per week and per month, but permits are associated with particular vehicles, so not transferable to the electrician or plumber or whoever. So I think we'll be stuck with having to shuffle vehicles around in the middle of the day to avoid charges.

Days 3 and 4 proceeded with me at work, punctuated by text messages in the evening clarifying various things like whether the fridge was broken when they moved it (it was actually just the bulb). Someone came to measure up for the stairs while I was out, as well as the foundations being dug, concrete poured, and foundation blocks being laid. Unfortunately a pipe was found which has turned out to be very expensive as it belongs to Severn Trent. This means that if in future it is found to be damaged the builder may be liable, so it has to be inspected during the build to certify that it is in perfect condition before and after. And this costs hundreds of pounds, due to me being in no position to decline their kind offer of inspection.

Lots of photos, then. These are the stages of the foundations so far (you can see the expensive pipe in the second and third pictures):

And the stages of the kitchen demolition:

There's an interesting lintel and bricked-up opening exposed in that last picture, which is behind what is now the fireplace in the living room. At one point this would have been the rear wall of the house which might then have been the pub, but I can't imagine what its purpose would have been.

So we're four days in and much progress has been made. Biscuit consumption: Bourbons: 90%, Hobnobs 10%, Digestives 0%. I have bought more Bourbons. Maybe I'll try them on custard creams next.

The build-up to the building

Shipley Church, September 2017

What a week. I've been clearing out the kitchen properly because of the building work starting very soon, and I've set up the alternative kitchen in the living room to try it out. It's working OK and I'm sure I shall soon start to remember where the bin and the kettle are now located. Mugs are on the shelf with the CDs, cereal is in the cupboard with the music system, decaff teabags are in the next room and I've bought several packets of biscuits because I'm assuming builders eat biscuits and I want them to like me so they will do a really good job.

Meanwhile there have been some extra stresses at work. On Monday one nurse and the doctor were both ill, and the remaining team was led by a nurse who, let's say, is not an enthusiastic worker. So she made the receptionist cancel all the patients for the day, and the doctor was not pleased when he found out. The nurse won't care, though.

More kitchen clearing on Tuesday, then on Wednesday I went to a meeting convened by Diabetes UK and NHS England all about self-management through Structured Education. I really, really need to think more carefully about whether I should go to these meetings. It was attended by several people working for Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) from different areas in the West Midlands, and by 'service providers' like myself.

I listened to an account of a really good way of delivering self-management education to people with Type 2 Diabetes in Worcestershire, while thinking how it could never happen in my region because all the key people are all too busy picking fights with one another. But I spent a bit of time talking to one of our Senior Commissioners, but there are so many administrative layers between that level and my own that it really seems to make no difference to me what is decided at the top, and similarly there seems to be no accountability to Commissioners about what I decide to do. It just frustrates me that I don't understand how the system works and nobody seems able to explain it to me.

Evening activities added to the running about that I did, with the usual badminton (including the first match of the new season), my new Buddhism class (more about that soon), and, unusually, some social activities.

On Friday I went to a Charity Music Quiz in aid of one of my colleagues who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. It's a very sad story: she and her family were devastated by the diagnosis and did what many families in their position would do - clutch at straws. Faced with their oncologist's pessimistic prognosis they found a clinic in Germany which offered a treatment costing £50,000 for the first cycle (I think three cycles were recommended) after an initial fee of £17,000 just to look at the biopsy samples.

So they embarked upon a massive fundraising effort including local newspaper and radio coverage and many events and sponsored activities. Thankfully during this period the oncologist was persuaded to do a bit of research on their behalf, and an alternative but comparable treatment has been found in this country for a lot less money. But still a lot of money.

The quiz was part of this fundraising effort, and although it was on a Friday night with colleagues from work, both of which would normally have meant I would have taken care to avoid it, I signed up for the sake of my colleague. It wasn't a bad evening, and our team did quite well - I even contributed one or two answers. There was a raffle at the end which landed me a bottle of gin, but there were ten rounds in the quiz plus the raffle and I didn't get home until midnight.

The weekend was full of preparation for the builders squeezed in alongside more social events. Astonishingly, I found someone who wanted the kitchen cupboards! So on Saturday I welcomed a man and his nephew with their not-very-capacious estate car, who proceeded to take all the cupboard doors and a couple of the shelf units. Despite seeming a little suspicious about the whole deal at the start, by the time they drove off I was invited to drop in to visit any time I happened to be in their neighbourhood.

My monthly music group was on Saturday afternoon, and then in the evening I went to a local venue because a friend was playing a gig there - another late night (but not as late as the quiz night), and a walk on Sunday with the Meetup group which was delightful. The weather was so warm that we could sit outside at the pub stop, and after the walk I visited Charlecote Mill - a working water mill which was having an open day. So another long day, then back to work on Monday, more badminton on Monday night, and then...

The Builders Arrived.

What I've been reading

The Death of the Heart
by Elizabeth Bowen

narrated by Katherine Kellgren

"Portia is sixteen and orphaned and sent to live with her half-brother and sister-in-law in 1930s London. There she encounters the attractive, carefree cad Eddie. Portia is maligned, mocked and used by her sister-in-law and her young lover."

This is a tragic and cruel book, which twisted my emotional response to the agony of a naive young girl whose wants and needs are disregarded and betrayed by the only relations and friends that she possesses. Everyone who is in a position of responsibility or guardianship entirely fails her at every stage. There was absolutely no redemption, right up to the abrupt conclusion of the book, and nothing was resolved, not a chink of light at the end of the tunnel. Painful and horrible.




Cooking in a Bedsitter
by Katharine Whitehorn

"Practical, light-hearted and full of bright ideas, this classic cookbook for the inexperienced cook with limited space will lure you away from the frying pan and tin-opener towards a healthier, more varied range of delicious dishes."

It occurred to me that this might be a useful adjunct to having no kitchen, so I fished it out of retirement and read it again. It was a delight to come across recipes that I first tried 30 years ago when a student and novice cook with just two gas rings to cook on. But the blurb's claim that it will 'lure you away from the frying pan' is a little specious as it felt as though half the recipes are entirely based on frying: bacon, onion, vegetables, cutlets, whatever.

The Commodore
by C. S. Forester

"Horatio Hornblower, recently knighted and settled in as squire of the village of Smallbridge, has been designated commodore of his own squadron of ships, led by the two-decker 'Nonsuch' and bound for the Baltic."

Heroic Horatio triumphs throughout this one, although it ends very surprisingly with him swooning from fever that we are supposed to infer is plague. I assume he doesn't die because there are more books in the series. So that's all right then.