Five
Given the total lack of progress on all things planning, the week starts off with us thinking ‘ok, we’ll put the shed to the back of our minds and do Other Stuff’. This lasts till approximately 10.30 on Monday morning when I realise there’s a hitch with our plan because of the slope we haven’t yet got to grips with. We agree to leave it till Tuesday because we Have Other Things To Do. In the village where I (eventually we) live, there used to be a factory. It made paint. Ghastly blue paint, if the state of my house when I moved in was anything to go by… must have been a job lot. Anyway, the factory has closed and there is going to be a new housing estate. Waterloo currently has 82 houses. There are plans for 545 new houses. Eek. And the worst thing is that the ONLY access road is going to come through our little lane, which is only single track in places. So we’re trying to get it moved. The access road, not the estate – we’re stuffed on that one. A few of us have formed the Waterloo Action Group, which I’ve just realised makes me a WAG*. How cool is that? Of course it means I’ll have to be blonde, tanned, totally vacuous and like miniskirts and shopping but, hey, it’ll get me on the telly… Worryingly, Guy is also a WAG… Things are just starting to liven up on the WAG front, so I go leaflet dropping in a neighbouring village, speak to the nice manager at the pub (who, weirdly, wants the traffic to go the other way so his pub will be less busy…) and get barked at by numerous incredibly fierce dogs who turn out not to be. Not to be fierce. They’re still dogs… Obviously.
[* WAGs are what ‘wives and girlfriends’ of (usually) England footballers are known as. They’re a scary bunch who eat lettuce, pout a lot for the paparazzi and have long nails, which would be useless for building sheds. If one ever got planning. Am I sounding bitter here?]
The next night Guy and I decide to tackle the slope where the shed is going to be. That’s ‘tackle’ as in discover how much of a slope it is, not actually start digging, or anything strenuous. And besides, we don’t have planning… We reckon it’s ‘about a foot’ but want to know for sure as it might change the design of the verandah/porch bit, could affect how the base is built, and might change the path in front of the shed. We peg out our square (or parallelogram, as we call it) and then decide it does matter that it’s not square, so we start again. We eventually get it square-ish and stand back to admire our handiwork only to find that the shed will probably look like it’s disappearing downhill into the wood. So we move the whole square to the left. Then back a bit. Then forward a bit. And then right a bit. By which time it’s a parallelogram again. I helpfully stand in one corner with my hands together pointing upwards, trying to look like the corner of a shed. Apparently it’s quite a good likeness – excellent! About an hour and a lot of midge bites later, we think we’ve nearly got it in the right place, and have decided to do without the verandah/porch thing. So then we measure the drop of the slope. We were right. It’s about a foot…
On Saturday we meet Sarah and Vincent at IKEA in Bristol and go looking for lights for sheds because there’s a 90 day returns policy and if we don’t know within the next 90 days whether we have planning or not then frankly three unnecessarily purchased lights will pale into insignificance when compared with GBH on a local planner...
Sarah and Vincent are our fantastic building buddies who helped HUGELY on the pool build, entirely rebuilt our utility room earlier this year, and are already talking base building for the new shed. We love them. This is Vincent on the roof of the utility room. They’re not his teeth, they’re nails. And no, there isn’t anybody else working in the background – generally we just let Vincent get on with it and stand around making admiring noises.
Vincent and Sarah bring us a present – a length of rope that we asked for. We haven’t told them what it is for… And they buy us lunch. We have a present for them too – a book on roofing. OK, so Vincent lent it to us earlier in the year, which makes it a crap pressie, but they are very politely pleased.
Anyway, we have lunch and chat shed bases, and Vincent has this fantastic idea for bulking up the base – not rubble, but WINE BOTTLES! You lay them on a (flattish) base, dovetailing them as far as possible, and then add sand over the top, then concrete on top of that – hey presto, a fabulous insulated base! Guy tries to work out how fast he can drink enough bottles… Vincent suggests contacting the local pub for assistance…
Sunday starts well. Blunkett has pooped and peed in the kitchen and broken the cat flap. We abandon plans to visit The Abergavenny Food Festival and dive down to Cardiff farmer’s market instead – I find myself discussing lava bread with Rhodri Morgan, Wales’ First Minister. As you do… We buy and fit a new cat flap and Have Plans for the rope, which we don’t get round to – we both have yet another middle aged snooze after lunch before the highlight (?) of the day – a public meeting for WAG about this damned road. Lots of people turn up, Guy chairs it brilliantly, I add in my bits about leaflets and police, and we discover that even more houses are planned than we thought… God it’s depressing. I decide I am more of a shed person than a meetings person. Can we build a shed soon? PLEASE??
Achieved: We now have a site. Sort of.
Hours worked: 1 moving a parallelogram pretending it’s a shed.
Progress: I hardly dare mention this, but we are now 11 days into our 21. That’s over half way! WOO HOO! God it’s going s-l-o-w-l-y.
Shed plans: We now believe them to be finalised. No verandah, no porch overhang (well, only a bit please Keith). Internal door on right, stove on left.
Meditation progress: Bad news – my physio, Mike, is in hospital having an operation and has to cancel my appointment. Seems ‘positive psychology’ can’t cure everything after all!
Purchases: We didn’t buy any lights because we couldn’t make a decision… We decided to wait until we actually have a shed and then we can hold them in place and try them out. We did however, do ‘shopping’ – we bought Christmas wrapping paper. In September. Shame on us…
Pressies: A copy of ‘Period Living and Traditional Homes’ from Guy so I can find a nice wax or oil for the house floorboards for when we have sanded them. You’re right – nothing to do with the shed at all…
Health update: IT WASN’T THE GIN!! I’ve been seeing a homeopath in London since March, and we’re now at the ‘cut things out and see if you get ill again’ stage. I’d cut out one of the remedies (Zeolite, as you asked) and it very gradually made me ill – so gradually (and because I’m a bit dim) that I didn’t realise that was the problem. I’ve started taking it again, and I’m fine. However, I will try to cut down on the gin intake. Which will introduce a Whole New Diary Category: ‘Gin Moment Of The Week’. Cool, eh?
Gin Moment Of The Week: (Told you). Friday, when I discovered it was the lack of Zeolite, not the gin. So of course I had a gin to celebrate… And now it’s Sunday night, we’ve spent nearly three hours at the WAG meeting and, frankly, this counts as Next Week so I’m having another one…
[* WAGs are what ‘wives and girlfriends’ of (usually) England footballers are known as. They’re a scary bunch who eat lettuce, pout a lot for the paparazzi and have long nails, which would be useless for building sheds. If one ever got planning. Am I sounding bitter here?]
The next night Guy and I decide to tackle the slope where the shed is going to be. That’s ‘tackle’ as in discover how much of a slope it is, not actually start digging, or anything strenuous. And besides, we don’t have planning… We reckon it’s ‘about a foot’ but want to know for sure as it might change the design of the verandah/porch bit, could affect how the base is built, and might change the path in front of the shed. We peg out our square (or parallelogram, as we call it) and then decide it does matter that it’s not square, so we start again. We eventually get it square-ish and stand back to admire our handiwork only to find that the shed will probably look like it’s disappearing downhill into the wood. So we move the whole square to the left. Then back a bit. Then forward a bit. And then right a bit. By which time it’s a parallelogram again. I helpfully stand in one corner with my hands together pointing upwards, trying to look like the corner of a shed. Apparently it’s quite a good likeness – excellent! About an hour and a lot of midge bites later, we think we’ve nearly got it in the right place, and have decided to do without the verandah/porch thing. So then we measure the drop of the slope. We were right. It’s about a foot…
On Saturday we meet Sarah and Vincent at IKEA in Bristol and go looking for lights for sheds because there’s a 90 day returns policy and if we don’t know within the next 90 days whether we have planning or not then frankly three unnecessarily purchased lights will pale into insignificance when compared with GBH on a local planner...
Sarah and Vincent are our fantastic building buddies who helped HUGELY on the pool build, entirely rebuilt our utility room earlier this year, and are already talking base building for the new shed. We love them. This is Vincent on the roof of the utility room. They’re not his teeth, they’re nails. And no, there isn’t anybody else working in the background – generally we just let Vincent get on with it and stand around making admiring noises.
Vincent and Sarah bring us a present – a length of rope that we asked for. We haven’t told them what it is for… And they buy us lunch. We have a present for them too – a book on roofing. OK, so Vincent lent it to us earlier in the year, which makes it a crap pressie, but they are very politely pleased.
Anyway, we have lunch and chat shed bases, and Vincent has this fantastic idea for bulking up the base – not rubble, but WINE BOTTLES! You lay them on a (flattish) base, dovetailing them as far as possible, and then add sand over the top, then concrete on top of that – hey presto, a fabulous insulated base! Guy tries to work out how fast he can drink enough bottles… Vincent suggests contacting the local pub for assistance…
Sunday starts well. Blunkett has pooped and peed in the kitchen and broken the cat flap. We abandon plans to visit The Abergavenny Food Festival and dive down to Cardiff farmer’s market instead – I find myself discussing lava bread with Rhodri Morgan, Wales’ First Minister. As you do… We buy and fit a new cat flap and Have Plans for the rope, which we don’t get round to – we both have yet another middle aged snooze after lunch before the highlight (?) of the day – a public meeting for WAG about this damned road. Lots of people turn up, Guy chairs it brilliantly, I add in my bits about leaflets and police, and we discover that even more houses are planned than we thought… God it’s depressing. I decide I am more of a shed person than a meetings person. Can we build a shed soon? PLEASE??
Achieved: We now have a site. Sort of.
Hours worked: 1 moving a parallelogram pretending it’s a shed.
Progress: I hardly dare mention this, but we are now 11 days into our 21. That’s over half way! WOO HOO! God it’s going s-l-o-w-l-y.
Shed plans: We now believe them to be finalised. No verandah, no porch overhang (well, only a bit please Keith). Internal door on right, stove on left.
Meditation progress: Bad news – my physio, Mike, is in hospital having an operation and has to cancel my appointment. Seems ‘positive psychology’ can’t cure everything after all!
Purchases: We didn’t buy any lights because we couldn’t make a decision… We decided to wait until we actually have a shed and then we can hold them in place and try them out. We did however, do ‘shopping’ – we bought Christmas wrapping paper. In September. Shame on us…
Pressies: A copy of ‘Period Living and Traditional Homes’ from Guy so I can find a nice wax or oil for the house floorboards for when we have sanded them. You’re right – nothing to do with the shed at all…
Health update: IT WASN’T THE GIN!! I’ve been seeing a homeopath in London since March, and we’re now at the ‘cut things out and see if you get ill again’ stage. I’d cut out one of the remedies (Zeolite, as you asked) and it very gradually made me ill – so gradually (and because I’m a bit dim) that I didn’t realise that was the problem. I’ve started taking it again, and I’m fine. However, I will try to cut down on the gin intake. Which will introduce a Whole New Diary Category: ‘Gin Moment Of The Week’. Cool, eh?
Gin Moment Of The Week: (Told you). Friday, when I discovered it was the lack of Zeolite, not the gin. So of course I had a gin to celebrate… And now it’s Sunday night, we’ve spent nearly three hours at the WAG meeting and, frankly, this counts as Next Week so I’m having another one…
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