Kitchen!

I have to be virtually kicked out of the house every day. Why I feel that my presence is going to make things get done faster is a mystery even to myself, but I find being there reassuring. I think the guys won't leave as long as I'm there.

Yesterday Saeed invited me for lunch. We perched on paint pots on the top floor and ate couscous as he told me about his life in Egypt, working in Iraq during the first Gulf War, and living in France. He's a very sweet, teddy bear like chap, always looks like life is getting him down slightly, incredibly hard working. Not long ago he sidled up to me and asked me what we were planning to do with the studio. Obviously nothing yet, it's a wreck, but I said once we're in the house we'll deal with the studio and then we'll rent it out. He sidled even closer, and whispered in my ear 'I would like to rent it. For my wife. My other wife.' I tried not to look too surprised, and simply replied that it is really quite small to live in. 'Not to live in. Just to see me sometimes.' I said I'd talk it over with Cyril, but I have to say I'm not that keen on having a shag pad right next to the living room. It makes me feel a bit queasy just thinking about it. We've never brought the subject up again.

In three weeks less two days the packers are coming. Three weeks today exactly we are MOVING IN. Which definitely explains the enormous number of people working in the house at the moment, desperately trying to get on with their job whilst surrounded and often impeded, by other people also trying to get on with their's. We have tilers, painters, plasterers, window fitters, plumbers, kitchen fitters, carpenters and electricians in there from 8 am to 6pm every day. Some have begun smoking heavily. There's a nice enough camaraderie between them but some of them look like they're on the brink of tears. Saeed, the head painter, really did look close to tears today as the plumbers filled the radiators which then leaked onto the newly polished floors - which are covered with plastic but which the junior plumber had carefully pulled back before leaking large amounts of water all over. The beautifully painted hall has had a huge chunk gouged out of it and is looking, well, tatty. Needs repainting already.

On the plus side the bathrooms sort of resemble temples to cleanliness,

the windows are amazing,
and the beginnings of a kitchen are in.

Plus the amazing doors in the living room have been returned to where they rightfully belong, and somehow they really make it.


My brain is a mush. I'm dying of tiredness, still feeling somewhat drunk from an overindulgent weekend (is it technically possible to still be drunk three days later?), and the kids are now on holiday. Plus I have a forty five page translation to finish for the end of the week, tiles and curtain rails to buy and a nervous breakdown waiting patiently in the wings.