Sitting at the kitchen table, around a foot from my right ear the first of three loads of washing is undertaking its final spin. As you’d probably deduce, location within close proximity to this cacophony is hampering evoking blog topic notions. Nevertheless, being the stoic chronicler I am, I’ll soldier on despite this distraction.
Construction and fitting of my mum’s wet room’s now completed. Over the past fortnight, the team involved have knocked down a small existing downstairs toilet, built a partition garage wall, re-locating the boiler, prior to plastering, tiling and fitting a new bathroom suite. We, the family, delighted with the finished build and re-fit.
Conclusion of this work meaning the ground floor’s now able to support all Maggie’s living needs following her stroke eight weeks ago. Unable to clamber stairs, the dining room’s conversion to a bedroom, along with the building of this wet room, morphing the matriarch’s ground floor into own bespoke downstairs flat.
Subsequently, yours truly’s mischievously claimed upstairs for myself. A first floor domain where I’ll sleep, undertake ablutions, dress, groom and house my homing pigeons….. The latter seeming happy with their new locale; the bedroom with ensuite facilities. That being said, the pigeons are pretty high maintenance so’ll probably be irked there’s no Sky TV multiroom box, or discarded Greggs pasties, in room.
After all the building teams hard graft, all that’s currently left to fully complete this downstairs makeover are smallish emulsion and glossing jobs. A task I’ll be undertaking within the next few days. Labour I’ll be fitting around reducing a pile of ironing and cleaning out the pigeons room.
It’s been a productive day for yours truly. At 7.30am, I forsook my comfortable pit, threw on some decorating clothes prior to enthusiastically bounded downstairs to paint untiled wet room walls with silk emulsion.
Actually, enthusiastically is perhaps over-egging my verve levels whilst descending chez Strachan’s staircase to the ground floor. However, fuelled by an uncharacteristic giddiness about my mum at last having downstairs bathroom facilities, it’s fair to say I was in a reasonably chipper mood at today’s reveille.
Consequently, a fortnight since her hospital discharge, my mother’s indignity of flannel washes and commode use nears it’s much welcomed dusk. That light affording conventional hygiene practises getting ever closer to the personal care tunnel’s end.
This afternoon, following the plumber and bathroom fitter’s departure, yours truly tidied the garage they’d attenuated to cater for this bathroom construction. Well, that’s after googling the meaning of attenuated. This decrease of space accommodated comfortably after recent purges of items within the large storage area.
Tomorrow a refridgerator/freezer arrives, replacing the beer, wine and veg fridge which’s been retired following years of sterling service. After three decades of Albert the fridge’s company, I’m gonna miss the old fella who, in the shape of bottled continental lager, brought me numerously fond memories.
Today’s also witnessed me shoehorning lawn maintenance and various admin tasks into my day’s itinerary. This bubbling cauldron of chores once again diminishing the amount of writing free time.. This segment of the prose being the third time today I’ve returned to the keyboard after being distracted by phone calls, health support staff attendance and higher priority chores.
Right, I’m going to jump in the new shower to rid myself of today’s paint, sweat and homing pigeon poop.
