Covid, Construction, Consternation.

I've tried to avoid talking about Covid (well, someone's got to avoid it, right?)  but if I'm going to stick to my plan to post more, I have to mention that T and I have both tested positive. I got sick before him, and I'm now out of quarantine, but still not feeling that great.  My doctor said I'd probably continue to feel tired for a while. 

We were right in the midst of a bathroom renovation when Covid struck. 

Sooooo.... bathroom sink, tiles and WC have been removed, the builder also has Covid and we have learned the hard way that building supplies are running out and shooting up in price in Britain, and so many European workmen have left London that it's very hard to find people to do any building work at all.   

On the bright side, we still have a bath, which you see in the picture above.  What's more, it's plumbed in!  It's good that we have a sink (we're re-using the old one, which we really like) and we have nice new tiles ready to be fixed.  After several attempts at buying a toilet pan and fixings, we now have one waiting to be put in.  

On the dark side, this bathtub is damaged, and will need to be returned. and T's been running around trying to source another.  It took him approximately five hours of work to locate and pay for a suitable one.  It's not funny for Britain's customers, tradesmen or salesmen, this combination of Covid, Brexit, worldwide rising energy prices, rapidly increasing inflation and a government in disarray.   

Perhaps T. finds it helpful to have spent part of his youth living in Africa during a civil war. I hasten to add that he was not in a dangerous area of the country, but he knows all about spending time and hard work on trying to source perfectly ordinary stuff which then doesn't turn up, or is poor quality, or broken.   So we're both trying to take the view that life is too short to worry about the perfect bathroom, and T has been really quite enjoying himself painting all the bathroom paintwork (since the painter went AWOL, to the builder's consternation.)   I'm focusing on keeping the dust down and the place as tidy as possible with building supplies everywhere.  I haven't had the energy to do much that's creative, though apart from scanning old negatives. 

I had a big box of these and borrowed a scanner, so have been working my way through them.  It's absolutely fascinating to me to look through my old life. Probably not so fascinating to you, though, so I'll just show you this one photo, of dear little V. aged nearly two, riding on a Chiquita banana on wheels, a gift from an aunt in America. 

We were living in North Staffordshire, and it's nice to see these images which have been forgotten for so long.  They were taken in our first home, which we spent a lot of time repairing and doing up. Seeing it again, I'd still like to live there. It was an Art Deco masterpiece, built by a master builder for himself in the 1930s, with stained glass, mother of pearl, oak, mosaics and terrazzo.  This was not fashionable at the time, and after we sold the house to return to London, I asked the purchaser to preserve that fireplace with its gold and eau-de-nil mosaics.  It was a bit cheeky of me, but I hope they did keep it,  and I hope it's still there.  

Sorry for the awful quality of the image, but it is taken on some weird old film stock which has deteriorated badly. . 

Other than this, I am slowly reading through and commenting on your posts. And the new bath is arriving, supposedly, in 2 weeks time. The suppliers promise to keep us updated, but are so worried that it won't arrive that they've offered us a refund if they can't get hold of it. Fingers crossed. Whatever, I suspect we will be using the upstairs shower and WC for a while yet.