A truly madly busy day staying at The Hayling View with hardly any facilities as the electrician, decorators, heating engineers and office fitters were all working and the house was in dust. I got them all to cooperate and make the necessary access points etc and then interviewed my gardener Mark Bowles to ensure he properly fulfilled his responsibilities whilst we were away.
Breakfast with Daniel at The Little Chef and tea at The Happy Eater before a long evening sorting out my office and working on bill-paying, accounts and bank reconciliations. The Iran/Iraq situation has turned into a full-blown crisis with war threatened. Iraq announces move to place Westerners at Iraqi military and economic locations to act as a human shield
This was truly a mad and busy day. We had no water overnight apart from the mains drinking water tap in the kitchen. This meant that we could only flush each toilet once as the closet could not be replenished. I boiled a little water and had a shave and wash anyway and then woke Daniel up by taking him half a glass of apple juice which was all we had! We then went to the Little Chef for a nice breakfast before the action started. Once we had returned, the electrician came first at 8.40am and brought the Myson kick-space heater that was to be needed later. With his mate, he then pulled through the computer cable that was to connect one of our new desks to the other and then, as a bonus, had the correct tool to terminate the ends and secure the sockets to the wall. We also discussed the provision of low-voltage down-lights for the office as well.
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Then the heating fitters arrived - six of them in three vehicles! There was then all types of confusion as they ran around, raising carpets and floorboards as they ran endless lengths of new pipe around the upper part of the house and tore out the old boilers and piping. They were making a glorious mess and noise too. Next the decorators arrived to finish off the kitchen repairs. They had patched the hole caused by the fitter's stray foot and had also sealed a few cracks at my request and were completing the decorations. Then the office furniture fitters arrived and they undertook the cutting of the holes in all of the surfaces through which the power, telephone and computer cables were going to pass to make the office look tidy and un-cluttered. They also cut the necessary holes in the kick-space boards for the heater installation that they had previously forgotten to do. In the midst of all this poor Joan was trying to do some clearing up but this proved impossible and so I bid her farewell for her holiday. It was her suggestion that I try to persuade Diana to spend another week in Norfolk so that she would have a day or two back to clear up before Diana arrived. I reassured her that we were pleased with her supervision of the house in our absence and for her covering for the gardener's non-performance which had been quite a worry. I gave her some holiday money in view of this and to show our appreciation.
Then came Mark Bowles, the Gardener, and I had to see him in the conservatory in view of all of the congestion and the confusion. I left him in no doubt about the importance of attending to the daily tasks at The Hayling View and also of reporting in the book as to what had been done each day and I hoped that he would seize this last chance to make amends. I also found time today to make a number of telephone calls about the plumbing and heating problems and then took Dan to the Happy Eater for tea. Before I let him go, I got him to hook up his speed-boat onto the back of the Range Rover for my journey back to Norfolk tomorrow. I ended the day very late after spending hours and hours sorting out my new office; putting things away into all of the cupboards and drawers and then working to midnight doing all of my bill-paying, accounts and bank reconciliations; as the world does not stop rotating just because I choose to have an extended holiday!
In fact the Iran/Iraq situation has turned into a full-blown crisis with war threatened. Iraq announces move to place Westerners at Iraqi military and economic locations to act as a human shield