It is very cold here. Wild winds have howled, trees have fallen, lots of places lost power. Fortunately this area suffered only from lots of leaves being blown off trees (and into my newly cleaned out garage).
Fernando has been working hard, and has installed two fans underneath the house, so as to help it dry out. The smell of damp inside the house is very nasty. To get the second fan in, the refrigerator had to be moved. When we bought a new refrigerator, I took the opportunity to have a good look at the space. The floor was rotten there, too, so a handyman cut out the rotten parts and put a piece of timber underneath, for the new refrigerator to stand on. Of course, the sensible and prudent thing would have been to start fixing it all and to prevent it getting any worse. But whenever I suggested such things, I was met with hostility, and curt and blunt refusals, backed up with accusations that all I wanted to do was spend money. And the house belonged to Dr P, not to both of us. His attitude seemed to be that money was to accumulate, to hoard and to gloat over. Not to be used on frivolous things like house repairs. Although somehow it could be used to let me go on overseas trips, for which I was and am most appreciative and grateful, and which helps me recall that there were good things happening too.
I suppose one of these days, such as when it is all finished and order has been restored, I will stop feeling so cross about all of this. To me it seems totally stupid and irrational not to fix things up before they turn into total disasters.
I am very cranky about the lousy builder who used inferior materials, and whose shoddy workmanship over the drainage and damp-coursing caused the problems in the first place.
Having things all over the place, dust and dirt everywhere, makes me twitch. I have scrubbed the walls behind the shelving units, and fortunately all the nasty mould stains came off.
The removalists took away Dr P's vintage wardrobe, lowering it from the balcony onto the ground and then into the truck. They made it look easy, but it certainly was not easy.
This afternoon the choir had a rehearsal with the conductor and the orchestra for our performances of Verdi's Requiem. The music is so intense and wonderful that I have cheered up and calmed down somewhat, and spent an idle and frivolous evening with a couple of glasses of wine, watching a DVD of a very old series When the Boat Comes In, with James Bolam and Susan Jamieson. Tomorrow, back to the fray!
Fernando has been working hard, and has installed two fans underneath the house, so as to help it dry out. The smell of damp inside the house is very nasty. To get the second fan in, the refrigerator had to be moved. When we bought a new refrigerator, I took the opportunity to have a good look at the space. The floor was rotten there, too, so a handyman cut out the rotten parts and put a piece of timber underneath, for the new refrigerator to stand on. Of course, the sensible and prudent thing would have been to start fixing it all and to prevent it getting any worse. But whenever I suggested such things, I was met with hostility, and curt and blunt refusals, backed up with accusations that all I wanted to do was spend money. And the house belonged to Dr P, not to both of us. His attitude seemed to be that money was to accumulate, to hoard and to gloat over. Not to be used on frivolous things like house repairs. Although somehow it could be used to let me go on overseas trips, for which I was and am most appreciative and grateful, and which helps me recall that there were good things happening too.
I suppose one of these days, such as when it is all finished and order has been restored, I will stop feeling so cross about all of this. To me it seems totally stupid and irrational not to fix things up before they turn into total disasters.
I am very cranky about the lousy builder who used inferior materials, and whose shoddy workmanship over the drainage and damp-coursing caused the problems in the first place.
Having things all over the place, dust and dirt everywhere, makes me twitch. I have scrubbed the walls behind the shelving units, and fortunately all the nasty mould stains came off.
The removalists took away Dr P's vintage wardrobe, lowering it from the balcony onto the ground and then into the truck. They made it look easy, but it certainly was not easy.
This afternoon the choir had a rehearsal with the conductor and the orchestra for our performances of Verdi's Requiem. The music is so intense and wonderful that I have cheered up and calmed down somewhat, and spent an idle and frivolous evening with a couple of glasses of wine, watching a DVD of a very old series When the Boat Comes In, with James Bolam and Susan Jamieson. Tomorrow, back to the fray!
2 comments:
All your hard work is starting to pay off. It's probably difficult to see since you are waging small wars on so many different fronts, but soon all the little bits of progress will come together and you will be pleasantly surprised.
Singing is a wonderful way to release tensions. I no longer sing in choirs as I now wear hearing aids and do not accurately hear those around me.
I sympathise with you on so many fronts. Renovations are scary, money grabbing enterprises. I was the glazier at our house built about 1880. Replacing a pane of glass was never simple as one repair led to another.
It hurt my mother-in-law almost physically to spend money. She put up a cupboard in her kitchen. Cheapest she could find. Nails were banged through plywood backing, a few through cupboard frame. No attempt was made to find studs in wall to nail into. Nails went mostly into plasterboard and cupboard was filled up. She had it packed with things she could not throw away or give away. One night she was woken by a tremendous crash. Cupboard had fallen down and just about everything in it was broken including the good stuff from her mother which she would not give to family who needed it.
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