November 29

They were drilling through the lower ground floor today to look for the point where the drain runs from back to front, so that they can later plumb in a loo in a relatively close position. All of a sudden I heard an almighty bang and wondered what they'd dropped, and whether they were hurt. Or dead. So I went down to look. The vibrations of the drilling had been so great that the glass in the double glazed door that leads from my study into the garden had shattered. I was intending to replace that door but just today was thinking that maybe I wouldn't do that yet, to save some money. Evidently thinking is a mistake, or at the very least a waste of time.
Meanwhile I have had some interesting bits of information from the Camden Local Archives, to which I must return for another day's research as soon as I can. Here is the interesting sentence: The development of houses on the land (the Christ Church Estate where my street lies) began in the 1850s and the Camden History Society book ‘Streets of Kentish Town’ explains that the design of the houses “was overseen, on behalf of Christ Church, by Philip Hardwick, the church and railway architect”. So I must do some looking up of Philip Hardwick to learn what he considered the word 'overseeing' to mean.

November 30

Slight snag (do I mean that?) The Scottish architect had provided a drawing on the basis of the report prepared by the drainage people according to which the drains run deep enough under the house for the steel frame and its concrete base to sit above without doing any damage. Yesterday’s door-shattering drilling revealed that this is not so. The drain is too near the surface. Back to square 1? The builder has a way round the problem – but mighty costly, I do fear. Or, he says, let’s wait and see what the building controls people say. With luck they will be coming by, some time soon – this week, next week, sometime…