The Wasteland...

The builder visited this morning.

"Looks like a bombsite" he observed of our trench, bright yellow gas line & debris littered front garden.
"You should see inside", replied Mrs Llew, indicating the soot covered front room where yesterday, a fireplace expert was working on the site of one of our soon to be installed Jetmaster 700 gas fires...

The upshot of it is that this week, electricians will visit & relocate the overhead power & phone lines to the trench, and the electricity meter to someplace discreet outside of the house.... At some stage, possibly not this week (such is the speed the gas company moves at) the temporary gas line will also be relocated to the trench & the gas meter moved one metre north...

And early next week, a digging machine will visit the garden to remove said debris & prepare the site for the proposed car deck...

It's very exciting.

When the fireplace guy arrived, a very soft spoken, cordial & considerate fellow who has kept us informed of the process the whole way through, and although he is neat as a pin, as much as he can be, I have heard my wife tell people that we have this guy visit twice a week to spread a film of soot all over the house... I told him that it was very important that he tell the gasfitter (his accomplice) that when the gas line is buried, he is under no circumstances to fill in the trench, unless the power has already been relocated.

"Oh don't worry" said he, "He's not a shovel man. He's gentleman of the gas works..." Which I thought was a pretty droll observation of his colleague...

That settled... I also got some very good news. Today is the last day that soot will be distributed around the house, we are free to vacuum at will. And also... by Wednesday next week, we will actually be firing up the beasts (depending on the gas company moving the meter and increasing the pressure.)

As at this stage, we have no idea how we will be getting from the street to our front door, once the digger has removed the existing path & steps. But the builder tells me he'll "think of something" between now & next monday. We are also impressed with this guy because... in the whole process involving architects, builders & landscapers, he's the only one who has looked at the mature punga ferns in our garden & expressed admiration & optimism that we won't have to cut them down. We like him.

Disclaimer: The above photo looks nothing like our place. Not now, not next Wednesday. Aside from there will be one of these things in the dining room & lounge.

Mmmmmmmm.... heat....

Mind you, seems to be warming up a bit.

BTW: One thing I forgot to mention... the fireplace guy needed to demolish & rebuild the brickwork in the two of our 5 fireplaces (we even have the original "copper" in the basement) that we are using (the grand one in our massive bedroom will stay there for now, looking magnificent & antique, but unused, until we figure something clever to do with it). He needed more bricks & I mentioned we have a truckload at one of our er... other houses. So last weekend, I made a special trip down the road & piled the car high with nice bricks.

It was on about my 10th trip down from the car to the front door, that I noticed that I was having to be careful not to trip over on the 70 or so... loose bricks that run along the garden path that is going to be demolished next week...