GETTING PLASTERED

No late night blogging yesterday as the evening was spent in deep cultural contemplation at the Regent Centre, Christchurch for the incredibly long live broadcast performance of ‘Man and Superman’ starring Ralph Fiennes. Lucky I’ve got a bit of extra lagging on the old rear end to guard against buttock numbness otherwise my bum would have been deader than Maggie Thatcher.

“Heaven is the most angelically dull place in all creation” 

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen the builders have been getting plastered. (I could murder a Southern Comfort but can’t find the bottle in our dining room mess!) Gone is the back door, sucked under a thick coating of reddish brown muddy plaster like a victim sacrificed to a DIY bog monster.

Back door plastered up

Being an old Victorian house it’s not easy for builders to find a colour match to the imperial bricks used back in the early 1900’s but many of the old bricks removed from the patio door area are being recycled to fill the external gaps so fingers crossed it won’t look too bad after it’s finished. Plan B is to render the entire exterior wall if it does.

Waiting to be bricked up

Retaining period features is important in a world where old ornate architecture is swept aside for bland concrete monoliths. Affordable housing these days is a cardboard box on London’s Embankment and I count myself lucky to have my old Victorian pile that’s for sure. Glad to see these chaps are taking good care not to upset the old lady too much.

Side window shaping up

The original external window sill has also been recycled albeit cracked in 3 pieces to get it back into place. I’m hoping that with lashings of exterior emulsion, the ravages of time and concrete patches will be less visible. 

Replacing the original window sill

‘Must be a female kind of logic and where has that got you? Hundreds of pounds and gallons of moisturiser later only to discover the cracks continue to come through’ gloats the other half. He’s so right. It’s only the beauty industry that benefits from filling our pretty little heads with all this over-hyped rubbish. Now where did I put that tube of No 7 night cream?