Well the boy is back and good god is he back. Thankfully he has had the good grace to leave me to rest and have a lie in but it is activity abound at Chateau Chaney Camp (or Les Bengalis).

Of course my lie in is somewhat hampered by the gentle drone of the SDS Drilling in the kitchen. Thankfully however I am a pro and could quite possibly sleep through Rio Carnival promenading through my room! Apparently my desire to have the doorway symmetrical is causing more complications than originally expected… this job might have to wait until we make sure there are no structural issues with widening this doorway.

Finally dragged out of my pit (as my mother has always so tactfully called it), I actually got myself up, but it was 12:30pm. Fear not, Matt has a fun packed day planned now he’s back. Of course much of it involves me, as (in case you weren’t already aware) I do have unbelievable decision making skills and vision.

One key thing to find is the stopcock. Looks like that must be it as this thing shoots water quite some distance. I must work out how to see when someone is walking past it from the basement so that I can spray them with water…

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Time for lunch I think, it’s been a busy morning (ha!) Baked Camembert, bread and wine.

One of the big areas of focus now Matt is back is the electrics; he seems to have some obsession with them being “safe”. Time for a good game of hide and seek. To play our version you need something with a light or sound emitting in every socket, and a set of radios. One of you seeks every fuse board in the house (we’ve counted x so far but sure that there’s one or two still in hiding). Once they have found the fuse box player 1 radios to player 2 on the ground floor announcing stage 2 of the game. As player one flicks off each fuse in turn, player 2 runs around trying to work out what has just turned off. The game had a level of interest to it, made somewhat funnier by not knowing which switches and sockets actually worked in the first place and whether I’d actually turned them all on or not.

Game over and we have identified some fuses and the kill switch. I’m not entirely sure who won, but since we never found the fuse for the front lights in the kitchen I suspect that it was the house. To reclaim some pride Matt has postulated that in fact the lights are hard wired into the main fuse board.

Since we lost we have resorted to using the kill switch – better luck next time house!

Matt is getting suited up, clearly he means business. The house is really going to get it now.

Time to see what’s hiding under this god awful false ceiling in the kitchen. It’s terribly bowed (and I hate it) so it is going to have to go. Looks as though we have nice original coving and a good quality ceiling.

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Interestingly, it looks as though this room may have been two rooms initially. As far as we can see there appears to be a divide across the centre of the room. That will require further investigation.

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We currently don’t have a temporary light solution so will have to leave the rest of it up. Signs are good though. That big line across the ceiling is going to required some considerable thought into this, once I can see it in its entirety. Means no ceiling rose, but also what to do about it, it’s going to look pretty silly. Matt got a firm ‘no’ to his suggesting that we put in another false ceiling.

There’s also plenty of dodgy wiring in this place.

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Time to replace the light switch and socket that magically broke all on its own while Matt was away. It has been taped to an off position ever since Matt became concerned about its (and my) safety. Not much I can do to help so time to start writing up Friday’s blog. Bigger job than anticipated (aren’t they all). The casing is in though and so we wait for it to cure, cue next job.

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Shutters. Ok, well seems that the issue with one of the ones in the kitchen was user error. I’m not sure who is so stupid that they can’t use the twirly stick to move it up and down?! In my defence however it did make a very loud ‘clunk’ noise before it started to wind up. And we have light. Next is the one in the salon. This was much more complex. I handed him many screwdrivers and held the step ladder while he prodded and poked at it. I then found much more pleasure in taking funny photos of him at work.

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I love the ones with him poking out the top and just his little fingers poking out. They made me laugh. He’s only gone and done it though. That’s one more fixed.

While the lights are off we’ll pop down to the basement to see what is under the false ceiling down there. Seems it is shallower than in the workshop. Interesting.

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Time for me to have a fun job I think. I bought a bag of compost a while back so going to get some basil planted up. It might be a bit cold and dark for it to do anything but I’ll give it a go.

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Now waiting for the kettle to boil and steamer to heat up so decided to call Tonia quickly. Double bubble – seems mum’s there too. Quick updates and chat – I think Tonia is excited about her upcoming visit. Can’t talk too long as I have to get on.

More stripping. I was hoping that this might be a two person job but Matt appears to have got distracted by properly plumbing in the fridge. His ‘yeah, I’ll be done in 5 minutes’ wasn’t convincing the first time, it had lost all power by the forth or fifth time. Seems that he can’t quite reach the roof on the step ladder either anyway and doesn’t like stretching too far from the top of it as it slips. Not sure what he thinks I’d been doing for the last week if he couldn’t reach any higher.

Matt’s now making dinner so guess I should get on with the fire.

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That’s all the real manual work done, next up some more planning. While I pose myself on the small plastic step (right in front of the fire) he walks around the kitchen asking where I want the plug sockets and marking up the walls. [I could swear we have had these conversations about 5 times already, hopefully the wall markings will convince him and we won’t have to do it again.]

Muma Camp rang.

Afterwards we go back to the electrical and network planning. Once we’ve done the first (and second) pass of the kitchen we have 19 power sockets, 4 data sockets and 2 TV sockets. I don’t think I can take thinking about the other floors. This is going to be an epic task – I hope Tonia is ready for it.

Matt continues with his plan while I look at the overall project plan. Time to add resources and completion levels – it’s much more fun to do the project plan than deliver it!

Once again we reached the wee small hours and it’s time for bed.