… working away upstairs when I happened to glance it the time.
Blimmin’ ‘eck – 18:40. And I have to be in St Eloy all dressed up and looking pretty by 19;30.
Of course, as you know already if you have been following my blog, the days when superheroes such as myself could whizz into a telephone box in our day clothes, do a quick twirl and whizz out again dressed as our alter egoes have long gone thanks to the technological revolution that has seen the rise of the portable telephone and the consequent fall of the public telephone box.
Hence we have to get washed, shaved and dressed like you mere mortals and that takes time. Better get my skates on.
So what had I been doing that had taken all of the time?
First thing was to bring a whole pile of battens upstairs into the attic. The way I’m progressing I won’t any longer be able to bring 4-metre lengths of wood upstairs via the stairs. That took a while too.
Then I put battens on the wall where my desk is going to be, and xylophened them. I’m making it a kind of policy to xylophene any wood that is coming into contact with any of the wood that is already up there.
That took me to lunchtime.
After lunch I fitted the insulation and then fitted the three floor panels in that corner. I’ll be needing an offcut too to fill a small width.
From here it starts to get exciting – I brought the door upstairs.
A cheap British B&Q glass door that I bought in a sale ages ago. You can see where it’s going to fit when it’s installed (it’s just leaning against the post right now). The stairs are going to turn away from the door at 90 degrees, go halfway down and then do a U turn. To the right of the door is where my desk and office stuff will be, and underneath the office space is where the shower room will be.
Once I had put the door into the position where I want it, I measured up the floor so that I know where the left-hand upright will go, and then measured the floor so I know where to fit the two traverse beams that will support the floor that people will walk on as they enter the room via the door.
And it was doing that when I happened to notice the time.
At St Eloy we were 8, if I remember correctly, and our task for this evening was to look at faces and write down what we imagined were the lifestyles of the people depicted. And then we had a very congenial session in the bar afterwards.
Participating in the Anglo-French group is as much about socialising with congenial people as it is practising and improving our “second” language.
