Day Two didn’t start well because I slept in past the 5:30 alarm so had to watch the Japanese Grand Prix recorded rather than live, which meant I didn't have the advantage of the FIA live timing on the laptop, and then Hamilton went and blew it again! Oh Lewis, what were you thinking? On the plus side, Massa only scored a single point because he is as excitable as our man Lewis. So I had an egg and bacon sandwich, which I guiltily consumed because it was supposed to be eaten as a reward for getting up so early on a Sunday, but what can you do when you have gone and bought the bacon and fresh bread?
After the Grand Prix there were no excuses left so I finished packing up the cupboards and drawers into boxes and was left with an empty kitchen. A cup of tea and a cigarette’s consideration later I decided to hack from right to left with a crowbar, a club hammer and the odd judicious use of a screwdriver and it all came away remarkably easily.
The counters came away with nothing more than a jigsaw and a bit of pressure. An hour later all that was left was a cooker and a sink. I stopped the hot and cold water, cut the pipes, added inline stops and the sink unit was free.
The cooker itself was easy beyond comprehension. How come it just pulled out of the unit when it had seemed so solidly integrated for the past six years? I isolated the power at the consumer unit, cut the wire, half expecting and bang which didn’t come, (I’ve gone through a lot of cutters like that!), and the cooker was free. The hob had an electrical connection for the ignition spark that had never worked which was also a quick snip. Behind, where the cooker used to reside, was a stop tap for the gas which I turned and then cut the pipe, checking for a build up of pressure with my thumb which didn’t come and then removed the hob along with the cut counter-top. Piece of cake!
That left the entire kitchen, flattened in a pile in the back garden and a God-awful mess in the house so I made a quick sweep through before setting about the tiles. I refurbished my bathroom four years ago and the tiles in there were stuck on so well that I had to replace two of the plasterboard walls. I was expecting the same in the kitchen but I had either learnt through experience or they had used a weaker adhesive in the kitchen. For my vanity’s sake, let’s just say I’m getting good at this :-)
The tiles all came off with only a little collateral damage to the plasterboard walls much to my relief. There were a few gouges in the plasterboard but nothing a good Polyfilla session won’t cure. That left walls with lots of tile adhesive in a tramline pattern and it was a total b*****d to remove!! I tried with a scraper and then the eccentric sander until my palms blistered and bled and then went for 100% sander which did work.........at a cost. The trouble with a disc sander is the dust. I am not talking sawdust or house-dust. It is pure talcum comprised of the white tile adhesive. I wore a facemask knowing how bad it can get but had forgotten quite how the dust manages to get through closed doors, drawers and cupboards. It is incredibly fine and works its way into everything, even behind a facemask. I got a very good idea of how I will look after my hair has lost its colour!
I have got the walls smooth enough to re-tile them now and cleared up the dust in a the most important places in the house and have written this after a lovely hot shower.
And so, Dear Blog Reader, I will update again soon. Bye for now :-)
