8:41 a.m. - Real Tenable Progress

Neil wasn’t working on our house when Mark got home.  Builder was!  Gasps of shock from around the world.

Mark’s comments to Neil on how we’re 3 months behind schedule, fed up of not having a toilet, basement’s cold and depressing, not impressed that Builder’s never here, really don’t want to hear about the progress on his next house must have filtered back to Builder and he was all sweetness and light and mopping the grout off the kitchen floor.  I even followed him upstairs for the joy of actually watching a man clean the bathroom floor.

He tells us we are going to have a working toilet for the long weekend.  I am done believing him and trying not to be excited about this.  It’s not too difficult because of course the nice toilet seats have not been delivered yet so my first pee will be a cold-porcelain experience anyway.

The electricians had also been in and fitted covers over the light switches and sockets and connected all the circuits that weren’t connected before.  This is where I find out I’m fat – when I suddenly take a shower under a light for the first time in 3 months.  The downstairs bedrooms have lights and the door bell works.  We have two bell pushes and two different rings so you know which door your visitor is at!  Aren’t we posh?  One goes “bing-bong” and the other just goes “bing” and sounds a bit freaky.  The upstairs bathroom needs more light but that’s OK.  On the negative side they’d rewired all the 220V sockets especially installed for our English appliances that they had carefully wired in when they did the initial installation – must’ve thought they’d done it wrong or something. So the fridge was off part of the day and Mark had to rewire it all before I could do dinner.

When Simon left we stood on the verandah and watched an amazing rainstorm that only lasted about 10 minutes but the rain fell so hard it was bouncing back up about 18 inches off the road and we had a bit of thunder & lightening which Slaughterpuss didn’t like one bit.  I bravely went out in it to rescue my lupins from drowning but the tomato plants seemed to be lapping it up.  At least that’s how it looked through the bedroom window anyway – so brave.  We had lamb roast for dinner (I got home early from work) and then put our feet up to watch Stargate SG-1.  Altogether a most satisfying evening.