h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OK... going back... the day I left, err, last Monday... Monday just gone.
I was getting ready to leave, washing up the coffee pot, cup, etc, ensuring I'd put both sets of cuffs and clamps and things in my rucksak, etc...
When a woman turns up at the door. From the company who the council employ to do their repairs/maintanace, and who have the contract by default, for doing this replacing the roof on the entirity of the block, of which my house sits in the middle.
To take photos... of my ceilings
No, I've not recieved a letter.... hmmm.... no, you can't come back later in the week, I'm going away today, for a week....
me, very flustered, lets her in, she takes photos, I sign a bunch of forms, having no clue whatsoever what any of them are but I'm in a rush...
Hmmm...
Scaffolding going up next* week, she says, work commencing the week after.
errr.... nope.... that isn't what the letter from the council, adn the legally obliged form, including notice they've sent, says, and there has been no otehr mail saying anything differnt.
hmm.

I get home today.

The block is scaffolding clad already.

I'm very very very annoyed, and very very angry. But only a sort of get a taxi along to the council offices on MOnday morning, and decapitate the person in charge kind of annoyed and agry
*folds a towel*
Right.
So, it is possible* they may start ripping off the roof on my house, Monday morning.
I've a couple grands worth of instruments, mainly guitars, but also keyboards, boxes of cabelling, mics, other studeo gear, a few thousand audio casettes, vinyl, CDs, computer stuff, household furnature type thinggies, and assorted other 'stuff' in the loft-space, which is in the eeves of the house; its on the same floor level as my first floor, which is one's normal gorund floor, type floor, so easily in and out of, for access, making it a very useful storage place).
Anyhow... I'm guessing I'll need to move that all out. Tomorrow. Quite where I'm going to put it all... I was leaving the whole of Febuary for doing this very job, but now...

I'll be calling and E-mailing the person at teh council, MOnday, if I can find their contact details anywhere... < .

Stupidity.
In the cafe earlier, after coming back into town with William.

"two black medium coffees please".

"with cream?"

this is the second person at that cafe, who does not know what 'black coffee' means

Anyone in the vacinity of William's house last week, might have mistakenly believed I had found religion Going by the number of times 'oh god', might have been mentioned

mmmmmmmm.... collar plus leash

Who's turn was it to buy in the cream this time, err... nope, not the cream to go with the black coffee... the one for

BoB I feel tired... going to have a really* hot shower in a moment to try wake up and see if it helps ease some of the err bruised bits, which, err, is most of me, probably ,wow>

Leather dog-leash/lead works rahter well as a ... bruise inducing err... impliment BoB my chest is sore

I must have put weight on... I ate so much chocolate whilst away; It seems to ease the spike on the dip down from endorphin 'highs' well... that's my excuss mmmm... endorphins...
May make a start moving the dozen or so guitars out of the loft, tonight... Lodger's old strat has to be over a couple thousand quids worth, on its own... then there is one or two Spanish/flaminco/classical guitars, a couple of elec bases, my washburn, and yamaha, plus the electro acoustic, and I think some of my variax guitars are in there too, at the moment... plus my Fender bullet, and the lodger's telecaster... hmm... where the eck am I going to put htem.... and that's like 1% of the stuff in the loft, really... actually I'm sure there might be another couple half built/repaired base guitas, too, plus the banjolalay of course, the bagpiles, an old keyboard, the drum machine, a couple of mixers, my old Braille embosser, a WWII writing desk/cabinate, some spare bookshelves, two arcam HiFi amps, the denon amp, a yamaha casette deck, a couple of tunners, an old four track casette thing, plus... I'm too tired to do much at the moment... I need a week to recover

Huge load of towerls built up over several weeks, to wash tomorrow so at least I'll have plenty of freshly washed and dried towerls to fold tomorrow evening ,zen> ,zen>
Right... shower time I think..

I can offer you some butter balm (lemon or pink)

That wasn't good at all by the council, turning up pretty much unannounced... Calling them on Monday is an excellent idea, to find out what *is* going on

Enjoy your towels, anyway

mmmm... butter balm

Well, strickly speaking, of course, it wasn't* the council who turned up, unnounced, but the sub-contractors they use, now for maintainance/repairs.... I'm so* never going to buy another leasehold property... Whatever anyone says, its just a rip off really

Towel folding is always good... so medatitive err meditative

The rediculusly hot shower I had earlier unscrunched various bits of muscle I wasn't even aware were scrunched (shoulders, sleeping on a differnt bed, for the week, I guess, upper legs (sitting on a differnt sofa?) etc), and a also seems to have err... soothed soem fo the bruised bits namely my chest
Mind... having teh water runnign that hot, I'm quite surprised I've not burnt my scalp again Feels good to be home... though notgood not being with William... we so have to sort out living together, this being apart thing is just getting silly... and maybe* if we were* living togehter, we'd not ... err... 'go at it' quite so ... over-the-top-ly energetically whilst we are only spending time together every now and then ... hmm... maybe

Yeah, I'm in leasehold at the moment, although it works out pretty well overall for me - I have to pay ground rent, etc, but I do see where the money goes in relation to maintaining the communal bits. It can be an added layer of complexity, though, especially with big jobs like roofing...

Funny how the scalp senses temperatures differently from other parts - I've noticed that, too. Cool water is *cold* and warm water is *hot* Hot water for unscrunching is excellent though

Some of my body areas where one might expect the reaction to extreme temp esp heat,, to be more, actually don't mind, and quite like very hot... but its always my scalp that doesn't like it... I guess having long hair, maybe sort of protected it all my life from sun/cold...

The leashold thing here is weird; Its owned by the council, and its obvious why* it needs* to be leasehold;

There are six (err I think six), shops; on the ground floor, in a block, in a row basically, and inbetween each of the six shops, is a private door, with a private hallway; one of these private doors, and hallways is mine; There are no comunal areas at all
Anyhow, so, on teh ground floor, I've just a fairly large enterence hall, cupboard under the stairs, and another cupboard, containing just the elec meter, and my fuse box (just elec meter for me), I've a gas meter, stuck in a stupid position on the wall, high up

Then the stairs go up (private, just me and my house), and on the first floor, I've living room, kitchen, utility room, a 'studeo room' (have my computer and guitars in it, think it was described as a 'cloakroom or soemthing, on the house add), ) and a landing...

Up one more set of stairs, and I've three bedrooms and a tiny bathroom (functional, but only room for shower over bath, not a seperate shower cubicle sadly)

I checked the origional form/letter from the council; the roofing cost is being delided equally between shops and 'flats above' as they insist on alling this houses...

Its the council that decided the roofing needs doing; they had problems with one roof, at the house right at the far end, so have decided to do the entire block (built late 60s I think).

My ground rent is virtually nothing (£9 soemthing a month I think, and that apparently covers building insurance but nothing much else).

The cost of the work is astranomical; first estimate at about £7K per house; for estimated 6 week job; estimate now is that they'll take 11 weeks, so... I'm guessing they'll charge more;

Main problem is the firm doing the work, are the council's repair/maintance company; not a specialist roofing firm But I think they can get away with not putting the job for the roofing out to tender, as they put all* their repair/maintance work out to tender, a few years back, and this* is the firm that got that...

I'm not even sure if I'll be able to make it to the shop nextdoor tomorrow, as the scafolding is... excessive...

However, on the good point; they've not put scaffolding up at the back yet; it is the loft-space at the back in the eeves (these are really weird shaped buildings), where I have all my ... gunk stored; so if they've not scafolded that yet, they're clearly not doing the back yet; I will try start sorting it out though, as then I've of course got more time to do so

Really not loking forward to eleven weeks of having the roof taken off, and a new one put on.... I don't really think we've got the weather for it, either, at the moment

I've just about decided to sell up here anyhow... Cambridge is just too damn expesnive... and moving to a differnt city makes a lot of sense in so many ways, plus I'd be able to get a place, sorry. William and I would be able to get a place, with a decent garden, and a garage (workshop for me!), detached, probably.... here in Cambridge, anything remotely like that, even having to look a few miles or more out of town, in the surrounding villages, is probably way over half a million... heck, there's one bed flats in the center, near me, at half a million... just silly money and way more than either I'd ever have, we'd ever have, or, indeed just so bonkers money I'd feel it disgusting to spend so much, just* on a house/flat

Last time I looked, I think average houses in my postcode had gone up something stupid like £6000 in three months Anyhow, once I've paid for the roofing, I'll barely have enough left to paint and decorate the inside of this place, which hasn't been done in a decade or more, far less have a new kitchen put in (the one here looks like it dates from the 80s, and was in when I moved in)

I do seem to recoer quickly form bruises etc... especially after that very* hot shower

Hang on... they are charging *you* for this work? That *they* have decided to do??

What the smeggity smeg?

Our management company isn't always great, but it definitely sounds better than the council... The communal parts include the walls and roof, so we pay a bit into the central fund every year (about £90 a month) so that big jobs can be done when necessary without putting all the expense into one year...

Thanks for describing your house in more detail I couldn't visualise how your loft space fitted in, but I get it now - very handy to have walk-in storage My flat is all on one level, and I don't have loft space but I do have plenty of cupboards, thanks to the previous owner and the communal garden is rather good. Hopefully you should get a good price for your place when you decide to sell, even without redoing the kitchen, and then you'll do well finding somewhere better for you and William

Good luck with it all

Yes, I know people in other leasehold arrangements, where they pay something each year into a fund, for such things...

should make a fortune when I sell; bought for £102000 in 1999, neighbours sold, a couple year, or one year back, for £270000 and according to stats, the prices here are going up by something like £6000 every three months... also, my place may be in slightly* better condition than neighbours one which sold most recently for the £270000 The area we're looking to move too, £200000 buys a detached, city center-ish, house, with gardens, garage, 3 beds or more, and 1 or 2 reception rooms, plus often a really good state of repair/condition/updated Though am tempted by some a bit cheaper, round the £160000 mark, as spare cash could probably provide a nice little income, if used to purchase a small flat to rent out somewhere damnit... I hate capitalism... I'm a bleedin marxist... I hate myself thereby, for benifiting from property price increase

Guitars moved out of the walk-in loft space in the eeves.... Oh... BoB... there's some junk/stuff in the eeves... Not going far in to it (guitars were all near the door, to the narrow side, inside), discovered one bag of rubbish, left form the 'final' sort out of the loft, years back... that's in the dustbin now... WWII writing desk... three or four large plastic open boxes, with cables, more cables, cables, and one with flower pots and things in underneath them, in their boxes, my expensive pair of powered studeo monitor speakers (err currently one is bust), which I oughta move I guess Beyond* that... oh... BoB... knows... I know there is vinyl... casettes... more cassettes, and casettes... the WWII desk thing, is I think full of floppy discs and hifi seperates
There should also be a set of bagpipes, a banjolanly, and some hand-percussion instruments in there, too, somewhere I'm fairly sure there is, also a largeish shelf unit, which is the top section of the unit I do* have in my bedroom, and also a strange shelf thing, which I used to use, sort of not wicker... I found the neck of a bass guitar, and a body and neck of a bass guitar without any electrics, too There should be a body for the neck, somewhere Oh... BoB... well... at least I've moved the guitars out, that'll have to do for now, I'm knackered,and haven't got the energy; Plus, as the scaffolding is all at the front* of the house, adn there isn't any* at the back, I'm hoping the eeves won't be started on, for weeks... if, of course, they plan to do the eeves... far too simple for them, clearly to give any bluddy information out to us
Now... if I could only find my old Prussian cavlary sword.... I could go along to the council offces tomorrow... and 'have a word' with them hmmm.... I've a really* cunning... devious plan; any other* rubbish I find in the loft space/eeves.... I'm just gona leave it there, and hope they might take it, when the roof comes off
Housework done for the day... time for some relaxation, even laundry put away (with much folding) May give myself a pedicur Mind, my feet are covered in brick dust and muck now, after being in the loft