Scientifically-proven rage

4am

The edge of Storm Diana battering the house.

The wind moaning against the windows sounding like a child keening. My ears alert to the faintest murmur from my son.

The creaking of the roof joists like a child's footsteps across the bedroom floor. My hands sweaty and my heart thudding as I wait for the door to our room to be opened by a sleepless child.

The flapping and rattling of the tarpaulins outside. Wondering if there's any point looking outside to see whether everything is safe.

The muffled tearing and snagging sound of a cat scratching a carpet. I nearly go downstairs to deal with the defecating beast, but decide it can wait.

BigBear turns to me, "sorry if I woke you."

He hadn't. Or perhaps he had. Or perhaps we'd both been woken by the same noises outside. Either way, I was awake before he went to the bathroom.

"If it makes you feel any better, I'm now lying awake worrying about how much the building work is costing."

It didn't.

Earlier in the evening, when it was actually reasonable to be awake, BigBear had shown me a brief report on the effects of sleep deprivation on anger. Apparently, cutting someone's sleep from 7 hours per night down to 4.5 hours per night for only two nights increases anger. I am willing to provide corroborating evidence that this is true.

BigBear's comment filled me with rage. Disproportionate, unreasonable rage. In the cold light of day, it's hard to say quite why. Being worried about the cost of a very expensive building project is fiscally responsible. Communicating with your spouse when you're worried is a fundamental part of a good marriage. Lying awake in the night is something that should evoke empathy and sympathy, not anger. And yet there I lay, feeling unjustifiably aggrieved. Aggrieved that I am desperately short of time, and sleep, and energy, but that the one thing we are blessed with is enough money, and yet now I'm supposed to be worrying about that as well? Feeling as though BigBear's worries somehow negated mine, or perhaps were a criticism of mine. My nebulous anxiety was being diminished by his much more rational concern. Because it's all about me. Especially in the middle of the night.

And then I got over it.

But I was still awake.

And still awake after that.

And then awake some more.

I tried relaxing one muscle at a time. I tried focussing on simply counting to ten as I breathed, clearing my mind of all extraneous thoughts. I tried taking myself off to a "happy place" in my mind, but it turns out there isn't one at the moment.

If we'd had a spare room, I would have retreated to it to read a boring book and nod off. But the spare room is now the "store everything that used to be in the extension" room, and doesn't have a bed. Or even enough spare floor to curl up on. I considered trundling downstairs to the sofa, but then remembered I would be yowled at by IdiotCat, not to mention have to suffer Storm Diana whistling through the not-exactly-airtight temporary door.

By the time 7am rolled round, not only was I tired, worried, tearful and stressed, I was also very, very bored. So, naturally, the first thing I did was go downstairs and check that IdiotCat had not made any further deposits. To my surprise, he hadn't. Though evidence of the scratching, shredding noises in the night was apparent in the pile of carpet-fluff that lay heaped around the doorway. Feeling marginally improved after not cleaning up excrement, I made BigBear a cup of tea to say sorry for being cross in the night. Even though he hadn't known I was cross. Sorry BigBear.

I told you communicating with your spouse was an important part of a good marriage didn't I? Blog posts and unsolicited cups of tea count as communication. Really they do.

Things I nearly said

I nearly wrote a post about all the good things that are beginning to happen on our building site. After a week of inactivity due to the steels that were delivered not being quite right, things have picked up pace.

I nearly wrote about the beautiful steel structure that's held into massive concrete foundation pads with nice big bolts.

I nearly wrote about the new damp-proof membrane we have, and the first course of block work marking out the new walls.

I nearly wrote about the newly drawn structural engineering plans that approve the use of queen trusses, and the omission of purlins with the addition of a flitch plate* that will all come together to provide the high, vaulted ceiling that we want.

I nearly wrote about building control signing off the structure as being to drawing, allowing all further work to continue.

But this morning, I stepped out of the shower to find a small boy thundering upstairs....

"Mummy? I like the cat even less** now."

"Oh dear. What's he done now?"

"He's poo-ed on the carpet this time."

Oh hooray. It's a good thing I bought a box of latex gloves for wearing when cleaning out his litter tray. Much easier to pick up poo when wearing a glove that can simply be thrown away. And to add insult to injury the IdiotCat had used his litter tray to wee in during the night. I do feel sorry for my poor puss, as he is clearly very anxious and very upset about the building work, but I have no idea what I can actually do to make his life easier.

When added to the insanity-inducing insomnia that has plagued me in the small hours of the night for the past three nights, poo-on-the-floor was the straw that broke the camel's back. I had already been awake since 4:30, dropping off briefly around 6:00, only to be woken by LittleBear at 6:15 when he laid claim to a nightmare.

So, despite all the Good Things that are happening, all I really want to do is sit down and cry, and hope that the howling winds outside don't lift the roof slates off tonight. It won't matter after tonight, since tomorrow the slates are being deliberately taken off so the entire roof can be rebuilt, queen trusses, flitch plate and all.

And now, as the evening progresses, I can feel my anxiety increasing, not only as I become more tired, but as bedtime approaches and I start to fear lying awake worrying about the roof, and the floor, and the walls, and the windows, and the cat, and the poo, and the carpet, and, and, and, and....

I'm worrying about worrying.

I'm fretting about not sleeping in a way that will lead directly to not sleeping.

And just like having no ideas about how to soothe the cat's fears away, I have no ideas about how to soothe my own fears away. How to stop myself worrying about sleep, or indeed how to stop my mind whirring manically for hours if I do wake up. I tried every meditation trick I have up my sleeve last night, to no avail. Probably because meditation doesn't come easily to me, I haven't tried it in a few years and I'm a bit rubbish at it. Maybe I should practise a bit more. I do keep telling LittleBear that you only become good at something by practising. Perish the thought that I take my own advice...


* I have developed something of an obsession with the term "flitch plate" so I shall indubitably write about it properly at some point. Who wouldn't want to say "flitch" as often as possible? Flitch. Flitch. Flitch.

** The current dislike of IdiotCat is not so much a dislike of IdiotCat himself, as his behaviour. Along the lines of loving the sinner but hating the sin. It is the wee-ing on the carpet which has led to the statements of dislike.

My life is made of football

When I'm not stressing about the destruction of the house, or whether I've remembered to send LittleBear to school in odd socks, or wearing pyjamas, or with cakes, or whether it's this week or next that I have to go to a meeting about SATs, my life is largely made of football.

This comes in many sizes and shapes.

BigBear has always been a Proper Football Fan, and he managed to harness my innate competitive streak to get me co-opted into watching the Beautiful Game. This means that my weekends have been preoccupied with football matches and results for over a decade.

LittleBear, being alarmingly like his mother, also has a disturbingly competitive streak, and once exposed to sport as a small boy, has been inseparable from all competitive sports. He will quite happily (if allowed) sit and watch cricket, rugby, darts, snooker, F1, but above all football. LittleBear also spends, as far as I can tell, every single break-time at school playing football. When the garden is not strewn with various disassembled sections of house, he will cajole me into it to play football with him come rain or shine. And now, to truly rejoice his little heart, he plays for the local under-7s team. Naturally, this also involves training sessions.

Which is how it came to pass that I rushed him home from school on Friday, wrestled him into his football kit, drove to the next village over... and spent an hour standing around in the freezing cold watching LittleBear play football.

Which is also how it came to pass that not long after 9 o'clock this morning we were cycling through the village while everyone else seemed to still be sensibly tucked up warm indoors... so I could spend an hour standing around in the freezing cold watching LittleBear play football.

This was followed with a detour to a cafe to fill up my insulated mug with coffee, buy a chocolate cake for LittleBear and ride over to the other side of the village for an under-7s match... where I got to spend an hour standing around in the freezing cold watching LittleBear play football.

Fear not, kind readers, my day of football was still not complete. LittleBear had a splendid time, and won the "Player of the Week" trophy, and once home we needed to undertake a thorough post-match analysis, re-enacting corner-kicks, shots on goal and defensive manoeuvres with some Playmobil penguins.

But still my day had time for more football. The three of us headed down to the village football club to watch the proper grown-up team play. This time I got to sit in the freezing cold, watching someone other than LittleBear play football. And for an hour it was great fun, with plenty of chances to point out to LittleBear what the players were doing and why. LocalTeam were 3-0 up and then one of the opposition players went down. And stayed down. And didn't move. And didn't move. And various managers and physios ran onto the pitch, and ran off again. And a stretcher was brought on, but still the player stayed down.

Nobody tried to put him on the stretcher.

Over the tannoy, the announcer asked if there was a doctor in the ground.

All the players left the pitch.

The player on the ground was draped in as many coats and blankets as they could find.

At last, the match was officially abandoned as the club waited for an ambulance to arrive, with the injured player apparently having suffered a serious back injury*. It was a sobering moment, and a stark reminder, possibly LittleBear's first, that football is only a game, and that there are things that matter so much more than winning and losing.


* I am relieved to report that the following was tweeted this evening, by the opposition team, "Good news from the hospital, Player has had X-rays on his spine and pelvis; thankfully no break in either."

Definitely a cat-astrophe

The IdiotCat has managed to avoid walking in any more concrete, which is indubitably a Good Thing. The IdiotCat is, however, deeply suspicious of the entire building site now, and despite the lovely builders best and most determined efforts to ensure he always has a route out, he has decided that he doesn't like it, and that he would rather attempt to dig holes in the carpet and wee in the living room. This is indubitably a Bad Thing. (Not dissimilar to Mog's Bad Thing, for any aficionado's of Judith Kerr's work).

I have now had to clear up more of the IdiotCat's Bad Things than I ever had to clear up after LittleBear when he was moving out of nappies and into Big Boy Pants. And nobody built LittleBear his own special ramp so he could safely climb over a freshly poured set of concrete foundations to get to the toilet either.

And this is why I was late to work this morning after shampooing the carpet (again) and we now have a litter tray in the living room. Yay.

Meanwhile, I turned into my normal self last week and lay awake inhabiting the hamster wheel of my mind, wondering about as many different permutations of roof construction and ceiling-shape as I could think of, entirely pointlessly, and with no reference to any facts whatsoever. Ill-informed, exhaustion-fuelled speculation is always the best way to spend the nights. After a few days (and nights) of this, I decided that since I'd actually employed a competent, professional, friendly building firm, it would perhaps make more sense to furnish myself with some facts by asking questions instead of imagining what might be happening.

Fighting my own tiny battle against the stigma of mental ill-health, I sent an email confessing to MrsBuilder (who is also in charge of all their admin) that I suffer from anxiety and that it was getting on top of me, and that even though my anxiety issues aren't technically their problem, I'd really quite like to know some more of the details of what's planned for the structure of the roof. And then I spent several hours feeling even more anxious about having made a complete arse of myself. MrsBuilder, happily, didn't see it that way. Or, if she did, she was very diplomatic about it, as she immediately made an appointment to come round with MrBuilder and go through everything together, and assured me that I only ever had to ask if there was anything I wanted to know.

I'm so pleased I employed this company. As BigBear put it, they have empathy.

Having a meeting with Mr and MrsBuilder did provide me with plenty of facts, which has eased the sense of "Aaaaaghhhhh, I don't know what's going on." It hasn't done much to help with the sense of impending doom as I discovered they're going to have to remove the entire extension roof and rebuild it from scratch. Perhaps the volume of timber in the garden should have given it away.

And just when we thought we'd found all the most entertaining parts of the former construction, more came to light.

Do you remember the welded beam?

Top quality "welding"

It turns out that the blackened marks that I'd rashly assumed to be evidence of welding are soft. And sticky. Even those of you who are unfamiliar with welding are probably more-or-less aware that welds are rarely soft. Or sticky. So, yes, it does look as though that fish plate* is holding the two beams together with mastic.

Fortunately the new steel work that will replace the not-welded, not-bolted, not-set-in-foundations steel work arrived on Tuesday, ready to be fitted yesterday and today.

Unfortunately the new steel work hadn't been made right, so has had to go back. I'm currently working on the basis that since the house hasn't fallen down in the past twenty-five years, it's not likely to choose the next few days to do so merely because I now know that it's only staying up through pixie-dust and unicorn tears.

Stress? What stress?


* Another of my new discoveries, along with king trusses, queen trusses and purlins is that the slab of metal used to weld two beams together is a fish plate. Though if it's not actually welded, maybe it's not a fish plate?

Almost a cat-astrophe

Today has been a day of good news and bad news. 

The good news is that Building Control were happy with our three lovely holes, and the three lovely holes are now (mostly) full of lovely concrete.

The less good news is that IdiotCat is an idiot, and after the concrete was poured, it was then pawed, and now we have a small cat with grey, crusty feet*.

The good news is that the first bit of construction has started, and we now actually have a stretch of wall that, unlike its predecessor, is joined to the rest of the house.

A real wall!

The bad news is that we've found a(nother) spot of comedy building technique. The main ridge beam running along the ridge-line of the extension roof has a large crack/break through the middle of it. And, rather like the amusingly-joined steel beams, this has been, well, amusingly joined.

This really is the main ridge beam

The main ridge beam has had two random off-cuts of wood slapped either side of it, and screwed in. Because a few woodscrews is almost as good as a beam, isn't it?

The good news is that the garden has a large heap of new timber waiting to be used to rebuild the roof.

Timber and blockwork ready for use

So, it feels as though the rate of calamitous-discovery-making has slowed down, and the rate of Good Things Being Built has increased. And aside from the cat getting his paws where he shouldn't, the Good Things Being Built are going well. And it's only been going on for a week so far.

* For those concerned about animal welfare, I should point out that BigBear is devoted to IdiotCat and has helped him clean most of the concrete off again, and IdiotCat is now perfectly happy, curled up in his favourite place - a heap of BigBear's clothes.

Causes for joy and despair

The destruction continues apace, with the house now being deficient to the tune of two roofs, three walls, four windows and a door. It has, however, acquired three Very Large Holes. These will be for pouring concrete into as footings for the new steelwork, assuming the buildings inspectors who were coming today are happy with the holes. At nearly a metre cubed each, I can't see how anybody wouldn't be happy with them really. If you're going to have a hole... make sure it's a big one. Or three big ones, which must be three times as good.

Before it finally disappears forever, I do have another little visual treat for you, however. I present for your delectation the manner in which the lean-to extension is joined to the flat-roof extension:

Construction at its finest

Please don't spend too long staring at that image, looking for the cross-bonding of bricks, or the anchor bolts, or indeed anything at all. There is literally nothing, not even silicone sealant, in the gap between the two buildings. They are simply built "quite close" to each other. Not even that close.

On the plus side, we have discovered that the pitched roof is actually attached to the main body of the house with something more than glue and good wishes. Not much more, but something more.

A bolt, a bolt, my kingdom for a bolt!

In fact there are at least four M6 bolts holding the first set of roof timbers to the wall. Which is four more bolts than appear to have been used to hold anything else together. This genuinely made me almost giddy with excitement. You have to take your pleasures where you can.

Meanwhile, the nature of my mind is such that I have been awake since 4:30 this morning fretting about the roof trusses, and their location, and appearance, and size and whether they will have to span what was going to be an open, vaulted ceiling and completely change how the room was intended to look, or whether there's an alternative structure, or whether we should revert to having a "normal" flat ceiling in the revamped extension to avoid having exposed (not very beautiful) trusses. You'd be surprised by how many hours I can spend worrying about roof trusses.

And then this morning, MrBuilder arrived on site, as well as the Diligent Weekend Builders. So I asked MrBuilder if we had to have the trusses visible, and now I know all about king trusses and queen trusses and purlins, and he knows what we want, and it's all fine, we almost certainly don't need to have exposed trusses, and what was I worrying about anyway? But never fear, I'm sure there'll be another thing I can lie awake worrying about soon.

The horror, the horror...

In a slightly surprising (to me) turn of events, the builders arrived at eight o'clock on Saturday morning to continue ripping the house apart, and appear to have every intention of doing the same on Sunday. Nobody can say they're not going for it. Today was, however, punctuated with pauses for them to stare and shake their heads, and on occasions to point and laugh. For those with minimal experience of building work... pointing and laughing is never a good sign.

I was chatting to a friend outside school the other day, and commented on the fact that the ceiling had been taken down. To my surprise she said, "Well I hope they're putting it back up again." I realised at that point that perhaps I had not outlined the full scope of what was happening to the house. In short, about a third of the downstairs area is being completely demolished, new foundations, floors, walls, doors and windows put in. Oh, and they might have to take the roof off and put it back on again as well.

To get your eye in, here's a picture from before they started, and the end of today...

 

 

Empty and ready for action

The only really notable thing about the above photograph is the abominable tongue-and-groove sloping ceiling that I've spent nineteen years hating.

At least the ceiling's gone.

Not only has the ceiling vanished, so has a section of the wall at the end, not to mention one of the roofs, and a large concrete lintel. I only regret that the wall to the right of the patio doors had gone before I had a chance to take a photograph of how it was joined to the side wall. Which is to say, it wasn't. There was a thick bead of silicone sealant approximately bridging the gap. It was possible to rock the entire wall backwards and forwards by hand. The draughts that used to plague that room are making more and more sense all the time.

This wholesale ripping out of the former lean-to roof, as well as the former flat-roof that's out of shot round the corner at the end of the room to the left, has allowed a thorough inspection of the structure of the third roof. Which is beginning to fall into the category of "things I'd rather I didn't know about".

Let us take exhibit A, the steel sub-structure. There are three uprights along the right-hand wall, spanned along their tops by a long beam. Well, sort of. There isn't one long beam, there are two which are kind of welded together in the middle. Kind of.

Can you see the welds? Me neither

Attached to this structure is the wooden frame of the walls. Well, when I say attached...

I wonder what these bolt holes are for?

Each upright is equipped with splendid big bolt holes (highlighted above, for your convenience) for the very purpose of attaching wooden frames to the steel. And yet, our entire timber frame is attached to the steels with glue. Or perhaps silicone sealant. Hard to say. Perhaps it's the slime trail from an alien slug. At the moment, anything's possible.

Now that we've established that the steel frame is not exactly structurally sound, we could move on to consider the roof itself. Which is held up on the steel frame. Here we go, here's one of the main roof beams, resting on the wall. (Unlike the lean-to roof, mentioned previously, the main roof beams do rest on the walls.)

Problem? What problem?

I admit, amongst the profusion of random pieces of timber, you may be struggling to work out what's going on. To help you out, I've marked on the next photo just how much of the main roof beam is actually resting on anything.

Oh, that problem!

And just in case we hadn't found enough things to laugh at, once the ceiling and roof of the lean-to had come out, we discovered a new item to point and laugh at.

The original external wall of the house

Here we are, looking at what was originally the external wall of the house. There seems to be something grey and white and black running across the back wall. What can it be?

Secret surprise

Why, yes! It is a waste-water pipe. It turns out to be the waste pipe from a washbasin upstairs. It runs under the floorboards, springs out of the back wall (formerly hidden above the lean-to roof) traverses the house and exits out of the side wall and down into the drain. And it's held together with gaffer tape. That well known plumbing sealant. Which means this job just got a little bit bigger and will now involve asking the builders to do some additional work upstairs to decommission this particular pipe. Yay.

At least it's not boring round here at the moment. What was that Chinese curse? May you live in interesting times...

A new adventure

So... this is currently happening in the Bear household:

Which is to say, we have finally faced up to the realities of the terrifying incompetence of the previous owner, and are having a large section of the house Properly Dealt With. We have, or perhaps used to have, an extension. It is hard to describe without the aid of diagrams quite the nature of the extension, and I do know how you all love diagrams. Sadly, I can't quite be bothered to draw diagrams for you tonight, so I shall try and paint a word picture instead.

Our house is moderately old, built ninety years ago, originally without indoor plumbing. Sometime in the reasonably-distant past, a solidly-built, flat-roofed, single-storey extension was added, containing a bathroom. Some time later, some half-wit added a lean-to extension up against the side of this first extension. The second extension, being a lean-to, had a sloping roof. Despite the rather ad hoc, and temporary, nature of this extension, it still struck the next owner, Mr Bodge-It, as a good idea to put a large pitched roof over the whole lot. So we have two roofs on our extension(s). Which is nice.

Over the years, the lean-to part of the extension has gradually become colder, and draughtier, and damper, and generally less pleasant to be in. So we now have a lovely firm of builders here, essentially ripping it down and starting again. Not least because in their first exploratory dig they discovered that the lean-to didn't actually have foundations, and the steels that were "supporting" the roof were gradually slumping and sinking, as could perhaps have been predicted given we live in the fens, and there was nothing but mud beneath them.

Failing to find foundations

Now that the builders have started work properly, they are enjoying the same experience that every workman I have engaged goes through. They are discovering the handiwork of Mr Bodge-It. Personally, I've almost lost the ability to be surprised by the things that he did to the house. I smiled happily when the gas man wanted to take photographs of the old gas fire installation to send to his professional trade magazine, on the grounds he'd never seen anything so awful. I carefully removed the green/yellow wiring used for a live supply to an outdoor light. I gently shrug when I open the central doors of the fitted wardrobe and find a chimney inside it, and no actual cupboard space.

I find a certain frisson of entertainment to watching the reactions of professional tradesmen when they investigate our house. I got home yesterday to be confronted by Mr Builder, asking me, "Do you know what was holding the roof onto the walls?"

It came as little surprise to me to be told that the answer was "almost nothing." In fact, Mr Builder wafted something that looked like a particulary long and thin Viennetta*. It was in fact silicone sealant, and Mr Builder was so astounded by it that he wanted to take it home to show his wife. That's quite some silicone.

Today, sadly, I was home after they'd finished work, which did not prevent me getting a certain vicarious thrill from the things that they'd discovered during the day. I may, occasionally, be a little old-fashioned. A little bit tied to tradition. But there are times when I can't help but feel that sticking with the "traditions" of building regulations and basic mechanical engineering principles is a good idea. Take, for example, the tedious habit of only burying mains wiring in a wall in perpendicular lines. Wires should run up-down or left-right. That's just how it is. I can only imagine how much fun Mr Electrician had finding and digging out this cable run:

An unorthodox approach to mains wiring

Meanwhile, the ceilings have come down, to reveal the structure of the lean-to roof. Again, call me old-fashioned, but I generally find that if I want to span from one wall to another with a roof beam, the ideal way to do it is to rest the beam on top of the wall. That way all the lovely forces of gravity are transferred into the wall directly. An alternative method, I suppose, if you were more of a free-thinking artist, would be to screw the beams end on into the top of the walls, ensuring the full weight of the roof is taken on a handful of screws.

Can't think why the roof is sagging, can you?

The best bit about all this is we've only just got to the end of the second day. Imagine how much more there still is to discover! What fun!

On a more serious note, every one of these horrors that is found utterly vindicates our decision to Get It Done Properly. The extension wasn't just "a bit draughty", it was heading into the downright dangerous territory, and we are Doing The Right Thing in starting almost from scratch rather than applying another layer of bodge on top. I may not be quite so jolly as the windows, doors, walls and roofs come down and November bleeds into December. Now, where's that hot-water bottle...?

* Viennetta is a peculiarly English variation on ice-cream, once considered the height of sophistication.