Wow, so it’s been a while

One of my longest stretches between posts (about two months since the last real update apparently), but I’m still here, honest!

The last real post was July 11th, then there were a couple of Watch The Skies-related updates towards the end of the month. Since then we have actually been doing stuff, so the lack of updates is really just a case of me being too lazy to actually write them. And, like all things, the longer one leaves before doing something the harder it is to get done.

 

It’s been a bit of a weird summer for me.

The building works are still going on, meaning we’re literally living in half a house, and to be honest I think we’re dealing with that remarkably well. And it is quite a lot to deal with – no kitchen, have to wear shoes inside everywhere, have to deal with non-toilet-trained builders (ugh), washing up in the bathroom sink, doing a laundromat run every week, etc. And that’s before we ever get into talking about the regular frustrating interactions we have with the builders; but I’m kinda sick talking about that so I’m not going to do it here!

Having real food to eat (yes, the freezer food is still going strong!) is helping quite a lot at least, I really can’t imagine subsisting off supermarket microwave meals or takeaway for so long.

 

All that said, though, sometimes it kinda catches up with me.

I can’t cook. A couple of years ago that wouldn’t have bothered me at all, but obviously now cooking feels like much more a major part of my life and a major component of how I unwind or deal with stress. A little bit ironic, that;  my avenue for stress relief disappears because of the same thing that causes me to need stress relief. Oh, sure, I’ve done some microwave cooking, and reasonably successful efforts at that. A couple of different pastas, polenta spoonbread, chocolate cake, french toast. All very tasty, but they don’t satisfy the same urges at all.

I find it quite restrictive to not be able to invite people over any more. By nature I’m a) not a party-goer and b) more comfortable socialising in small groups than large. Over the last couple of years quite a large proportion of our socialising has been hosting dinners and boardgaming days at our house; suddenly that’s not an option any more. We’ve been fairly lucky in that respect, though; some of our friends have been amazingly understanding and accommodating in hosting us at theirs instead, so I don’t feel quite the social outcast that I could have otherwise! It feels a bit weird almost inviting oneself to other peoples’ homes with no immediate opportunity for reciprocation. I have a bit of a ‘thing’ around this as well, where I don’t like feeling that I’m more eager to socialise with people than vice versa. I always want to feel that a friendship is two-sided, that my desire to socialise with someone is reciprocated, so returning invites without my instigation makes me feel more appreciated/valued (ok so I’m clearly a bit needy); now I’m forced to be on the other side of that equation! But, friends have been extremely accommodating and understanding; I’ll have to feed them until they burst after our house work is finished as some weird form of thanks.

Anyway.

I guess after talking about all that I should really give an update on how the building works are going, as I was a little bit vague last time.

We had a hold-up of over a month where we ran into a requirement to get sign-off from Thames Water to move a drain and manhole. The most annoying thing about this is that it had been a known potential issue before the work had ever started, so having it cause a major delay 6 weeks in was just a tad frustrating, to say the least. But anyway, eventually that got sorted out and just last week the works resumed – and now, finally, literally just today, we have one set of steels in place for one of the structural walls we removed. Next week will see the other wall get demolished and replaced by some more beams, then hopefully the following week we’ll have all of the drainage issues (movement of a manhole outside, etc) resolved.

There appears to be 8-9 weeks of work left on the project, but at least now we can see some visible movement again and with it the potential for an end. There are few things more frustrating than knowing there are 10 weeks of work remaining, but with a moving end date when everything is paused.

So, start of November then. A little bit different from the middle-of-August we were originally hoping for. Well, at this point, if it hits the start of November with no further issues we’ll take that.

Here’s a random picture of the back of the house; hopefully in a week it will look significantly different! (mainly, even fewer walls)

 

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Enough with the house stuff, let’s talk about other things. What interesting things have I/we been doing?

*consults calendar*

I’ve been to a couple of interesting museums/buildings recently: the Sir John Soane’s Museum, and the Freemason’s Hall. Both were quite interesting although in very different ways.

Sir John Soane was an architect in the early 19th century who designed a bunch of public buildings in London – including the Bank of England, although not the version we see today – and was a bit of an eccentric collector of art and knickknacks of all kinds in his home life. His museum is pretty much his house as it was when he died, and it’s filled with all of his collected bits and pieces in more-or-less the state and arrangement that they were in at the time of his death. He was clearly a big fan of clutter because you barely have space to move around the insides for the various statues and art and bits and bobs that are almost just lying around in some cases. It’s really interesting, though, as underneath the clutter there is actually a theme running through each room, and quite a lot of those themes were designed to upset or discomfort more uptight visitors in his day.

The Freemason’s Hall (yes, those Masons) was similarly very interesting, and even more surprising for it. It was a recommendation from a friend (Colman), and when I randomly took a day off work I decided that was a good place to pay a visit to. He had told me that it was worth it but I was still surprised by how good it actually was in the end. They have a bit of a museum and they also do a free hour-long tour of the building – the main home of the Masons in England. They’re very willing and eager to show off what they have and explain to the layperson  (i.e. me) what they do and stand for, which is definitely not that they’re a cult, of course. I’m not really going to go into any of the details behind what they stand for – if you’re interested enough you’ll go look it up! – but I will post a bunch of pretty photos.

 


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I’ve decided that, really, far too much stuff has happened since the last post so I’m going to split this post into two.

End of part one!


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