Lurching from triumph to disaster

I had thought that I would be posting some more splendid updates about the progress on our building site, and in theory I could be, as the ceiling and walls are now fully insulated; the first fit of wiring has gone in; the exterior cladding is almost complete along one wall; the roof is nearly complete (only awaiting lead flashing); the internal plasterboarding is all fitted and today the new floor is being poured.

But...

When I got home on Friday I found another poo-present from the cat, there were no windows, and the diligent all-weather builders had got a bit carried away and almost completely boxed in the planned storage area designated to be the "loft" above the downstairs bathroom. I hadn't been expecting them to start work on that yet, and had not imagined that my half-conversation in broken English on Wednesday about what the plans were would result in them misinterpreting my flapping hands and building a hopelessly wrong construction.

Filled with exhaustion, sadness and anger I wrote a rather long, and somewhat ranting, email to MrsBuilder. To my enormous relief she replied almost immediately, essentially saying, "they shouldn't have done that, we'll put it right." For once I was not left fretting day-and-night over the weekend that I'd over-reacted; or that my builders would walk off in a huff; or that I'd be told it was all my fault and I'd have to live with the mistake; or any of the other permutations that my brain was warming up to panic about.

Unfortunately she also let me know that there'd been an "incident" with the lorry bring the windows, and they were delayed. That was it, no further information about the nature of the incident, or the length of delay. Phew, for a moment there it was looking as though I wouldn't have anything to spend the weekend worrying about, but at the last minute something was pulled out of the hat.

Which brings us neatly to the start of the week, at which point we discovered that the lorry had crashed. On the plus side, the driver wasn't injured. On the minus side, the windows were. They have to be made again from scratch. The factory closes for two weeks over Christmas. The windows and doors are now due on site at the start of February.

February.

Only another six or seven weeks of living in a building site.

I know that it will be lovely when it's finished, and that many years of a solidly built, well-planned extension will make a month and a half delay pale into insignificance, but it's not exactly the Christmas present I was hoping for.