17 November

While we wait for the Italian structural engineer and his Irish boss to send us the specifications that will allow work to start again it is maybe time for a little reflection. Nothing remains in my flat that was there before apart from the front wall, the back wall, the ‘spine’ wall and the stairs. Except… In the brief months that I lived there I quite enjoyed the fairly clever, extremely chilly, ensuite shower room that sat partly in what had been a corridor and partly under the stairs outside that lead to the raised ground floor entrance. It had a wet room (gone) and basin (set to one side for future use) various cupboards and mirrors and bits of glass (some gone, some kept) and a loo.

Now raised on a regal plywood pedestal I shall call this last Ozymandias. It is plumbed out but not in, meaning that the builders have to keep a bucket of water by its side that they re-fill from the garden tap outside to which the hose is usually fixed for when I water leaves. It also means that when I go downstairs I ‘ahem’ somewhat to give whomever it might be some warning because Ozymandias is open to all.

And by the way, I have a new favourite word. It’s noggins  - recent addition to my stock of builder terminology. I like it because I didn’t know it before, unlike padstones, and RSJs (rolled steel joists) and Acrow props, all of which are fairly self-explanatory. But noggins give no clue to their purpose and they sound cute. They are cute. Floor joists are the wooden beams that in my house run from front to back, evenly spaced (sort of) and given added bracing (in theory) by wooden Xs fixed between them. These are the noggins, of which there are rather fewer in my flat than solidity would require. This will of course be remedied by the Poles – when they get back.

When the last bit was uncovered yesterday I looked up and saw something interesting. The entrance hall to the building as a whole (raised ground floor front door) slopes badly from the wall to the house next door down towards the body of our building. Rubbish floors, maybe? No. What we saw was a good strong beam supporting that hall area - nay, a double strong beam, not rotten or worm-eaten - just wonky, skew whiff, at an angle...you choose. Perhaps the original builders weren't looking, I suggest. Yes, says boss builder. Or perhaps they were drunk.