I think I ought to be thinking we're on the home run. I know we are actually, but it doesn't exactly seem like it, the place is still quite a mess. But it's getting there. I hope.

Alien invasion of the radiators:

This is a chauffe plat. A radiator with a little cupboard in it for keeping your roast potatoes warm. May be used on a cold day for warming up your knickers while you're having a shower:

Raphael's Lulworth Blue bedroom, with concrete floor. It was sagging alarmingly and after some thought we decided we had to change it. It's probably going to look crap, cheap parquet always does, though this isn't particularly cheap it must be said - but better than sagging and creaking.

You can sort of see the colour of the hall and staircase here. You can also see the state of the parquet on the stairs. Covered in wierd hairy stuff, like the sock fluff you sometimes get between your toes:

I had these friends in London, both architects, who did that very London thing of buying a Victorian terraced house and gutting it to make way for a lovely, minimalist interior. They moved about two years later. "I just hated the place," K told me, "after living through the hell of the renovations, I couldn't wait to get out and move somewhere that wasn't filled with the phantom shadows of the builders." I didn't understand it then. Now I am rather afraid I think I do.