CRAP week!

This week has gone like the speed of light. I said on Monday that I was in for some hard graft and here we are, nearly at the week’s end and I am physically & mentally exhausted. Phil arrived safely in Somerset and was tucked up in bed very early on Monday evening; the early start and the long drive had done him in. He seems to be getting on okay with his contract and plucked up the courage on Tuesday to ask his line manager if he could work a 4 day week. I think he has got some balls, with this only his second week into a 3 month contract, but if anyone can get away with this request, it will be Phil!

On Monday I went to sign on with an agency. I am perhaps being a little premature with all the work in the flat to do, but I thought I had better start the ball rolling. The lady I saw was very nice to me and I came away feeling positive. This didn’t last long though; I took the agency word, excel and typing tests and failed miserably on the first two. When I say I failed, I got 60% in the excel test and 70% in word which surprised me because only a couple of weeks ago I scored 92% in the ECDL word exam. Maybe I can get away with the word test but I would imagine that excel is almost certainly a fail. The typing speed was good though, my score was 78 wpm which is not half bad. Probably so fast because all the practice I get typing up the blog! I emailed the agency asking about my predicament but I haven’t heard back, which is not promising. No news is good news. Hey ho………………!

On Monday afternoon I got two coats of white emulsion on the kitchen walls, which before were a sea -blue colour. It wasn’t pleasant, as it was cold, damp and miserable, even with the little heater, but I did feel that I had achieved something. I spent lots of time answering my mobile on Monday evening, but still managed to catch 2 episodes of Coronation Street and was in bed by 9pm. I slept well until the alarm went off at 4.30am because I had forgotten to switch it off after Phil left on the Monday morning. I got up and made a cup of tea but then felt a bit weary so went to back to bed. I tossed and turned and started to feel really bad. I got up quickly just making it to the bathroom to be violently sick and there I stayed for a couple of hours; shits as well as the sick, not a good start to the day. After my morning phone in with Phil, I eventually made it to the flat for 9.30am. Luckily David the plumber had a key and was already there, ripping out the bathroom. He did a good job and had everything taken out by 11.00am. Having a dodgy tummy with no access to a loo isn’t the best scenario but luckily things calmed down throughout the morning and I lasted until I could get home for lunch.

After lunch and phoning Phil with my update on the flat, I went to B&Q for a 1pm appointment with the kitchen designer. He did his stuff in CAD using Phil’s excellent printouts and told me the kitchen would cost in the region of 800 quid. I thought this was very expensive, seeing as we had a half price discount offer and were re-using all the existing base units. I didn’t order in the end and decided to wait until Phil gets home. I had roughly estimated costs at around £400 so something is definitely wrong somewhere. I went back to the flat afterwards and started ripping the tiles off the bathroom walls. Now this is a job I love; all you need is a hammer and a chisel and it’s a great feeling seeing the tiles fall and crash to the floor. I am a bit naughty because I don’t wear any eye protection and could seriously damage my eyes should a shred of glass hit me but I try to hammer the end of chisel and look away dodging the falling tiles at the same time. Who needs health and safety when you work for yourself?

There is still much to be done and what I’ve done so far doesn’t seem to penetrate the surface. I said to David, that it’s as if things have to get worse until they can get better, and he agreed. Still, the council have been and collected all the rubbish and the flat now smells of bleach rather than ‘sweaty men behaving badly’ which is a huge relief and of course, more pleasant on the nose!

On Tuesday night Janet came to pick me up and we went to Christine’s for wine and supper. We had a good catch up and hopefully I didn’t bore them too much with my tales of rife and strife. It’s true, I certainly feel sorry myself at the moment. Janet has a couple of days off to go and nurse her old mum who has just come out of hospital. And Christine whose birthday it was on Wednesday went off to New York on Thursday with her daughters and best friend to celebrate. I hope she enjoys the experience, she certainly deserves some happy times after all the shit that she’s has been through over the last 6 months. With my dodgy stomach I was worried about going out but I am glad I did; with not being at work, it is so easy to isolate myself from the world and hide away in this nuclear shelter – aka kebab flat.

On Wednesday it was back in the kebab flat for a whole day of cleaning. Betty, my crazy neighbour from our Cranfield flat phoned to ask if she could drop at the city centre flat for a coffee and instead ended up volunteering to help out at the Oldbrook flat. I said I couldn’t afford to pay her much but she insisted on helping and actually, she was a great help. She did a far better job on her windows than I did on mine and was worth every penny I have yet to pay her. And actually I was glad of the company. I’m normally up for any challenge but the work we have to do in this flat is overwhelming me, so much so, that without Phil onboard, I’m at a loss of where to start. Bet and me had a good day, she left at 1.30 and I limped home at 4pm, tired but at least feeling that we had achieved something.

Harriet came round after work and I felt bad I hadn’t cooked for her. She brought chips from the kebab shop and we chatted over a can of coke for her and large glasses of wine for me. HH left before 7pm, I had a chat to Phil on the phone and was tucked in bed by 8 o’clock. I slept all through the night, only to be woken by the phone ringing at 6.45am on Thursday morning. It was Phil with some bad news. He had switched on his mobile when he woke up to find 2 messages on his answer-phone from Jill, the lady who lives beneath our Oldbrook flat, to say she had water pouring from our flat into her wardrobe. I phoned her straight away; she was in a right state and quite rightly so, because she was flying off to Vietnam on holiday and had to leave that morning by 7.30pm. I cleaned my teeth, swilled my face, pulled on some clothes and dashed round. When I arrived, I saw that Jill had a dustbin in her wardrobe collecting the drips and things didn’t look good. I dashed up to our flat and turned off the water at the mains. Funny thing was, though, I couldn’t see any leaks in our flat. I went back down to Jill and assured her I would get my plumber on the job straight away. We swapped numbers and I wished her ‘Bon Voyage’ and away she went.

I went to phone my plumber only to find that I’d left my mobile at home so went up to the neighbour Aiden across the way. It was okay because Aiden is also our tenant and I could see he was up, because he was waving goodbye to his girlfriend and I also knew he worked nights. Apparently Jill had knocked on his door to ask for Phil’s number at some unearthly hour of the morning but fortunately, Aiden had just got back from work so he was up and about. I apologised for the intrusion and must remember to take him some beers round as a ‘thank you’.

Anyway, Jill said that her friend’s husband who was a plumber was coming round at 8am so I made myself a cup of tea with the water still left in the kettle from the day before and started painting a second coat on the lounge walls. Phil phoned me at 10.00am for a chat and said he wasn’t too sure whether the viewing on the kebab flat was 10.30am or 3.30pm. Realising that I had left the kebab flat in a right state I had to make dash home to make the bed and wash up and then get right back to Oldbrook just in case Jill’s plumber or my plumber turned up. David arrived just after 11.00am; he made a quick inspection and diagnosed the leak into Jill’s was caused by a loose fitting on the stop-cock. He promptly fixed it, assured me all was fine and went on his merry way. I got on with the painting but around 3pm I phoned Jill’s friend to see when her husband the plumber was actually coming. Although David was sure he had fixed the problem, I wanted to be sure that water still wasn’t leaking into Jill’s flat. Jill’s plumber finally arrived at quarter past 4; he was a nice chap but couldn’t find the key that Gill had left. He had a look round our flat and found the stop-cock was still leaking so he tightened that up some more and ripped of the kitchen kick-boards and the lino, only to find a really sodden floor. The plumber (nice chap and sorry don’t know his name) told me to leave a portable heater on all night and to check to see if it was dry the following day. Nightmare!!

As predicted in Monday’s blog, Ray the plasterer let me down just as I though he would. He phoned on Monday night to say that his Margate job had over-run and would it would be okay if he came on Thursday? I said “yeah fine, whatever, see you on Thursday”. True to his word he turned up with son James spot on the dot of 8.30am. Due to the leak I had to explain that I’d had to turn the water off but all would be fine because I had drained off water from the system and we could turn it on, as and when needed. He unloaded his gear, had a cup of tea, then decided he didn’t want to work around the plumber and would start on Friday (today). I wasn’t happy, thinking any excuse and that he just wanted the day off. But what can you do with a reluctant worker? His price is good, he does eventually get the job done and I know him. End of.

And so yesterday was probably the worst day I have had in a long, long time. Last night I got home just before 5, got showered and was in my dressing gown by 5.30pm. I didn’t eat diddley squat all day; 1 bottle of water, 2 cups of tea and some glasses of white wine (didn’t count how many). I have lost 5 pounds in all this week which but is probably down to the fact I just haven’t had the time or the inclination to eat plus I very S T R E S S E D!

Boy, this blog goes on and on. Am I boring you? God knows I bore myself. Today hopefully Ray will turn up to plaster. Jill’s plumber friend will hopefully have made contact and found her front door key and will be able to reassure me that the leaks have stopped. Betty and me will get the upstairs sorted and hopefully I will be able to finish by 3’ish at the flat and get ready for Phil coming home. I need to get the fridge stocked, get clean and maybe do me a facial and a manicure and pedicure. If my husband sees me in my current state, he may decide to stay in sunny Somerset forever. And I tell you, I certainly wouldn’t blame him!! My hands are like sandpaper and I have the ‘builders bum’. I love my life (NOT)!! There’s more to tell of course, but I’ve gone on long enough. More shit no doubt at the weekend, but for now I've got to get to work!