Slower, and aching

Huge excitement yesterday when I spotted a green woodpecker on the lawn, feasting on the ants

N and I are running out of steam.  We ache and we're tired.  We've slowed down because we can't keep up the pace.  I've said it before, we're not quite as young as we thought we were!

Old pipework

Gripper rod is viscous stuff, it needs to be levered up and handled with great care!

However, the heating engineers have done sterling work today and the new boiler and all the associated pipework (there's lots of shiny pipes under the floorboards now) looks lovely.  We've been trying to work around them, doing odd jobs (more wallpaper stripped; cracks plastered; skirting board sanded; walls washed), but every room looks like a building site - not really surprising, I suppose.  The first day we had the house, we found an old dustpan and brush that had been left behind, and they have been used on a daily basis to sweep up the mess we keep creating.  They probably feature in many photographs.

One of the holes that has appeared  over the past couple of days - this was where the old gas fire has been removed

And here's the remnants of the wallpaper behind the fire, a green 'willow pattern'

We had a bit of a shock yesterday when the plumber announced he was able to start work on the bathroom early next week.  That's great (we had thought we might have to wait for several weeks) but at present we don't actually have a bathroom to install =:o   After a mild panic attack (another one) we were out first thing this morning to try to rectify this predicament.  We wondered about sourcing everything on the internet, but after a very helpful hour in town we are hopeful that it can all be ordered locally and delivered on time.

Tomorrow we have a shopping list of required hardware, and a 'to do' list of things we would like to achieve.  It's a short list.  We are being realistic.

And we ache.