12 November

Darn! I write, politely. I had emailed the Irish structural engineer to ask him what size of RSJ we would need to replace the partition that goes across the centre of the building – because the idea of doing it came up when he was not there. He has replied. Not possible, not so simple, nothing so doable or cheap. Because this is a ‘spine’ wall, holding up the house in the middle (you could have fooled me) just as the front and back walls hold it up, a single RSJ of whatever size will not be good enough. It would have to be a steel frame, and that will be well over my rapidly shrinking budget. It’s a shame, because I really did like that structural engineer who talks about books and exhibitions  - and now steel frames.

My next step is a grave error and I warn anyone doing up their house to avoid this: I went online to look up spine walls, and how best to replace them (let no one think I didn’t trust the structural engineer’s verdict). This is equivalent to consulting a medical dictionary. I can feel the building becoming hypochondriac as I read.

Lots of construction websites inform me that in Victorian houses the spine wall is made of brick, crucial for bearing the weight of all those floors above, which is why taking them out entails the above-mentioned steel frame. But, I wail to myself, the only brick I have seen in the spine wall we wanted to move was the undulating row of post-war after-the-event flettons, three bricks high. Why is this building still upright?

The hypochondria kicks in. Yes, the house has stood for over 150 years but there is an end point for us all, isn’t there, and houses are no different. I can hear the structural engineer’s pleasant voice, as when we drew his attention to the lack of joists holding up the walls that divide the building front to back, such as the hall wall. Oh well, he said in his jocular way. It’s been like that this long, so it can go on a bit longer, can’t it? Yes, but that was before we discovered the woodworm.