OK we've just got back from The Skylark and after a pint of Guiness this could be an interesting report. First let's have some photos from the work that was done yesterday. Tom spent most of yesterday and a good part of today preparing the downstairs bedrooms and the new downstairs bathrooms for plasterboarding, the mass of wood on the walls are testament to his diligence. Marcus assisted him yesterday but having arrived early today I found him on our swing sitting alongside John the electrician holding his head in his hands. Apparently shortly after this he was violently sick and had to go home with an extremely bad migraine.

The second photo shows how Simon set up his trestles last night ready to do his plastering today and in fact he succeeded brilliantly as he completed the plastering of the entire study including the ceiling and all the walls. He did this despite having to work around Tom and the Orchard Windows people as they cut out, knocked out and then fitted the new study window. It's the first time since we moved into the house that we have had a view of the garden out of that particular window as it has always been covered in opaque glass. They also brought the framework for the new round stained glass window, however no glass is ready for it yet so we still have to wait to see how it will look. We did go inside the bathroom and look through the hole and our considered opinion is that it will be fantastic.

And the third photo shows how we will be living for the next few days, that is with a dryer in the middle of the kitchen as John did as he threatened and cut off all the power to the house while he installed a temporary box in the little loo - see photo 4. What this means in practise is that we have two long leads running out of the loo, one to the garage to keep the freezer going and the other into the house so that we can make tea, connect to the main fridge/freezer and Watch Telly! Yes I managed to make enough extension leads to reach the mass of cables that make up our connections to the TV, the PVR as well as the broadband connection - which is how I am able to post this tonight.

John worked his magic by ripping out the two old fuse boxes and replacing them with a proper, correctly earthed switched board complete with 4 double sockets and this is shown in the next photo. If you look carefully you can see one extra wire that goes up into the ceiling and that is to let the workmen plug in all their tools, chargers and lights. Their kettle has conked out but that's not a problem for them, they just use ours! Trouble is we think that they are also using our teabags as they are going down at an alarming rate. I haven't actually caught Sam in our cupboard yet but I notice that their little polybag contains no teabags yet they still manage to have one in each cup every time that he makes tea, and they are the pyramid style just like the ones we have. Perhaps I need the Buddha fitted with the camera after all!

For a change we had good weather today and all our workers, Tony, Simon, Tom, John and Sam sat outside on the deck for lunch - it was a proper little male bonding gathering - even Milo the dog joined in by racing around the garden every time that Sam threw a stick for him. Sam arrived a little late but he had good news as he has been accepted for training as a mechanical engineering officer in the Merchant Navy. He is a very quiet young man but he had the biggest grin on his face all day, he starts in September so he should see our job out.

And finally, finally my beloved hot water tank arrived around 4.00pm after I had made a frantic call to the supplier who assured me that it was in Devon and would be delivered as promised. Then we got a call from a very lost delivery driver who had finally managed to extricate himself from the narrow lanes around Torbay to arrive in Yelverton and took the wrong turning to Chub Tor. When he arrived he was a very nice man who insisted on doing most of the lifting and carrying to get the tank into the house. I was a bit worried about how it would be packed but having unwrapped several miles of bubble wrap my concerns were not justified. As you can see it looks splendid in its new position in the laundry room, but I am just a little concerned that it will be tight up against the dryer, as always it's going to be an interesting situation, but one that I am sure Tony and I can resolve.