We had our first night without lighting last night, creeping down the stairs with a Maglite at 2.30am to have a pee when there are wires trailing across the floor is no fun believe me. And the battery ran out on the radio. And all my spare batteries are in the Plympton store. Not a good night for sleeping. And we get to do it all over again tonight. And all over the weekend probably. And we have lumps of wet plaster all over the carpets. No fun at all, so we are both a bit stressed out. But we did get to go out to dinner last night and we had lunch at Trago Mills today, too many chips really but without an oven, what can a man do?

Before we went out we had a visit from the Carpetright man and he measured up for the stairs, landing, new upstairs bedroom and master bedroom, with fitting, grippers and underlay it will cost nearly £1000 but at least it will match up with the carpet in the current upstairs bedroom. One of the reasons that we went to Trago and B & Q was to look for extraction fans for the shower cubicles. John the electrician insisted that they need to be waterproof to IP25 but of course we couldn't find any with that number on could we? However thanks to the internet we located some at Plumbworld where we bought our towel radiators and as we speak they should be winging their way towards us. Another £100 goes into the deep well that is our very own money pit - remember that film? I sometimes think that we are living it!

While we were away the work continued and Simon and Sam worked on straightening up the passageway between the living room and the kitchen using One Coat plaster and it was that which seemed to get all over the carpet and floors - and my shoes. Simon also finished plastering the study and the first picture was taken inside the study looking out into the living room. As soon as this dries out it will get a few coats of magnolia and as soon as the electrics are in we can start moving the desks, cabinets and shelves in. The electrics are still causing John a few problems but we can see evidence that he is slowly moving through the house and we now have no light switches at all and no sockets other than those dangling on leads and fed from his temporary fuse box. I will begin to accept that things are on the up when I see him installing the switch plates, ceiling lights and wall sockets. I also hope that he soon makes up his mind as to the location of the cooker box so that we can have a working oven again. Speaking of ovens Sam managed to get our microwave into a strange mode today when he heated up his pasty to about 1000 deg.C I think that the steam generated got into the electronic controller and caused it to cycle on and off even when the door was open. I think it is OK now that it has cooled down but we won't know until tomorrow. We also have conclusive proof that he is nicking our tea bags as I went to fill our caddy up from the box where we keep the spare bags only to find it empty, and now that they have run out of milk they are even using our soya! It will be interesting to see what they do tomorrow when they find that there are no teabags to nick. Probably start on the black coffee...

Tom and Tony concentrated their efforts on the upstairs bathroom and the second picture shows that we actually have a bath and vanity unit in place, while the third picture shows that the loo is waiting to be fitted - except that it is currently waiting in the new cupboard opposite the bathroom. What you can't see is that the door is partly framed with architrave and that we have skirtings and the matchboard along the walls - all this has to be painted of course and as soon as it is complete and we have cold water to it we will be able to use the loo and the sink. Hooray, no more long walks in the dark to the little one downstairs! Of course we do have to hang the door as well or it could literally be a public toilet.

Tomorrow we may be forced to move temporarily into the new bedroom so that John can rip up the carpets and flooring so that he can replace the wiring to the ceiling lights in the living room and maybe start to run some power cables down the walls - we are hoping that a lot of the wiring will go down the cavity behind the asbestos. Can't say that I like living with limited electricity especially as the dish washer doesn't work and if we want toast we have to unplug the socket that powers the kettle.

That's it, it is now too dark to see to read and I am going to make a cup of tea and get ready for bed - even though it is only 8.30pm it is cold and dark indoors and I am fed up. See you tomorrow.