I can't believe we live in a world where kids don't know that chips are made from potatoes. Honestly! Flour, eggs or apples? What the? And sadly, these very children are going to be the ones running the country in about 20 years time.

Now when I was a girl......

*yawn* *stretch*

I woke up this morning to the sound of pouring rain on the deck - such a comforting noise when you are snuggled up warm and dry in your bed.

I came home to the flat briefly and saw two enormous plumbers drilling into the bathroom floor to fit a new cistern. The old cracked fittings were just hefted outside.



The two men doing the hefting and the drilling look simply too large to fit into our tiny bathroom. We have had good news and bad news on the flat front. The good news is that they are back on schedule and there has been a little progress – we now have pipes!



It doesn’t seem much, but it is a step closer to a new bathroom, so I was feeling pretty pleased. Until THE phonecall that started "Hej! This is Jonas from NCC”. (NCC being the firm who are subcontracting the work on the apartment). If Jonas (the head honcho) rings, it’s never good news. My first thought was “Oh God, what now!” and in fact, that was a very appropriate reaction, because they asked if they could have access to our shed.

I should explain that we have a large storage area in the attic of the building (up three flights of stairs – no lift!), but we are also lucky enough to have a small “shed” or förrådet on the same level as our apartment. It is really handy, as we can get to it by going out, crossing the hallway and opening the doorway behind the apartment opposite us. There you will find a large room, divided into eight fully enclosed sheds (one for each of the apartments in our stairwell). We have shelving around the walls and in it we keep power tools, the high pressure cleaner, the sewing machine, assorted office equipment, the tool box, sporting equipment, general hardware items, Christmas decorations, wrapping paper, spare bits for the boat, potting mix, fertiliser etc.

When we unlocked it for Jonas, he just stared at the full shed and groaned. Then in turn we groaned as he said we had to clear everything out of it as the pipes for the apartment opposite us go through the wall of OUR shed. Again, we are the only one of the apartments affected by this. I’m starting to suspect a conspiracy. We sweetly asked him where the hell he thought we could put all of this stuff as we had already been forced to store everything from the storage room on our bed, we could not use our hallway, kitchen or bathroom. In addition, the painters hadn’t sealed the windows, so the furniture in the living room had to be stowed a metre away from the windows and door to the balcony. And a way kept clear for them to have access.

This produced another burst of slightly good news. He rang the painters and told them to stop what they were doing and go to our apartment and finish the sealing. He then procured special moving boxes and said that if we returned after 7pm, we could pack up the shed into the boxes and stack them in the living room. Which now looks like this:



Steptoe and Son would be proud. Of course, you have to be a mountain goat to get in here and god only knows what is actually IN all of those boxes, but the apartment is now sealed, so no winter draughts can get in. My poor plants will be very happy as they have not fared well while it has been so chilly in here. The trees down at the harbour though, still stubbornly cling to their last vestiges of autumn glory.



And while he is a perfectly nice young man, I really hope that is the last call I get from Jonas.