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I haven't mentioned that the lilac bushes are in flower. There are lots of them. Forming roadside hedges for miles in some places. Just odd bushes in the hedgerows locally.
The electrician and plumber are due today. 🤞 I have more tidying to do after I dismantled the plumbing, radiator and the airing cupboard shelving.
10.00 58F. The electrician arrived and continued his work. Still no plumber yet. I spent some time raking the lawn to gather up all the chestnut twigs and leave which had fallen into the grass.
The electrician left at 12.00. His work completed. Two plumbers arrived about half an hour before that. One worked on the hot water tank and the other on the sink. The sink man left soon afterwards. Leaving the sink [very] uncompleted. Let's just say that I would not employ him to mop my kitchen floor!
Fortunately I easily recognised an unfinished sink installation. So the younger chap had to finish the sink as well. Equally fortunately he was the brains and certainly the morals of the outfit. I sat and watched him expertly install the tank.
Hoping to silently pick up any tips on making hemp joints. "Hemp" as in coarse hair. Used to wrap threaded plumbing joints before applying a form of sealing paste. Only then can the joint be assembled and tightened.
13.00 Lunch, and I am finally left to my own devices. With some ceiling reconstruction and lots of cleaning up to do. With three workers present that was more than in the past 25 years put together.
Now I have to decide an initial kitchen layout with only myself in charge and too little, hands on experience. Crockery and utensils need storage. When used and dirty. Washed up but draining and when ready to be used again.
15.00 64F. The new sockets are working! This is no small thing after decades of using extension leads from a single socket in the hall. I can now boil a kettle and make toast SIMULTANEOUSLY!
There are no more multi-socket strips to get through the everyday routine of living a normal life. Not to mention the former inadequacy of earthing. Schuko sockets and plugs now match modern safety standards. No more guesswork.
The airing cupboard was packed full of part of, my wife's collection of bedding, curtains and clothes. These have been redistributed to the charity shop system. I do have storage needs but of a completely different character. All the shelves and supporting slats have been removed. Giving me a blank canvas, I need to consider how best to use this space.
17.00 63F. There is now a hot water storage tank with an immersion heater in the airing cupboard. I had it placed at top right to give me the greatest flexibility in use of the remaining space.
Shelves allow vertical stacking. Without them things topple or get crushed. Which is rather obvious until you actually try it. Repeatedly, for countless decades! I could fairly be described as a serial, naive, storage person. The triumph of optimism over hideous reality. I am a lifetime victim of storage gravity. The more there is stored, the greater the attraction of the floor. The inverse square law does not apply. Quite the opposite!
However, shelves set severe limits on the vertical dimensions of storage containers. Or multiples thereof. One cannot just go barging willy-nilly into this endeavour. It requires disciplined, container storage aforethought.
The bog standard containers themselves have always jarred with my sense of easy accessibility. How "easy" is it to find something in a box requiring arms length, vertical delving? Furtive, or otherwise. Only identical items lend themselves to this folly. Yet billions of these failed tubs are dumped upon an unhappy, customer base every day, month and year. It is no wonder the global population is falling!
I would humbly suggest stacking, semi-shallow "trays." Except that these are definitely in the minority. Even unto an endangered species. Those which pretend to be shallow storage boxes hurl convention aside. To bury themselves intimately within each other. Whether full. Or completely empty. Where is the natural choice?
There is no simple, geometric reversal. For the safe storage of eggs. As a trivial example. Yet still allow the empty egg containers to nest [nay even nestle] together. For minimum, empty container, storage volume.
IKEA's storage trays being one glaring example. Of a total inadequacy in this respect. Placing one upon another always places the onus on the lower, stored items to support the upper tray. Regardless of type, or weight of the stored items, in either tier.
I rest my case. I am about to boil a kettle and make toast simultaneously. I have been waiting for 25 years to do this without holding a 10A ceramic fuse at the ready for rapid reload. The excitement is almost too much. Wish me luck!
I return flushed, slightly breathless and elated from this humble chore. I no longer needed to decide which task should proceed first. With the kettle boiling quickly. Or the toast taking two sessions to achieve unburnt umber.
Given the volume of masonry dust and sawdust falling in the kitchen and airing cupboard. I thought it best to remove all risk of gritted/gritty teeth. Nobody wants that. Hence the contents of the kitchen had been decamped.
Don't you just hate the way that black kettle lead jars with the tiles? Sadly it is connected directly to the base plate. With no opportunity for creative, colour matching.
Now I just need to find space for it all! I was never a fan of opening a cutlery drawer every time I need a tea spoon. Having a few spoons standing in a mug seems so natural. Then the knives and forks need attention. Only to be jostled by the mugs of desert spoons and sharp knives.
Before long the time it takes to select an item and find room for it all, becomes a chore in itself. Perhaps I'd better grease the cutlery drawer runners and be done with it?
And what about the crockery? Should I buy a second, washing up rack? Have that as a vertically arranged fast loading, quick-draw platform? Should I cut down on the sheer quantity of dinner plates? Do I really need to make up a roster for washing up for one? Notice board or chalk board? Decisions-decisions!
In case there is any doubt: This whole diatribe/monologue is supposed to be slightly amusing.
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