No it's not what you think just that Hilary and I spent an hour or so taking off the remnants of the wall paper in the smaller downstairs bedroom which will soon become a dining room with occasional use as a bedroom. Simon plastered the ceiling in there today and also stripped back the loose plaster on the wall that adjoins the master bedroom, incidentally in doing so he uncovered the old fireplace that was covered over with plasterboard that collapsed when he hit it. He is going to skim over that wall but cannot do it over wallpaper so our homework tonight was to steam off any wallpaper that remained. We decided to go the whole hog and take the only wall that isn't going to be plastered so the job took a little longer than expected.

We also gave the workers a break from us for a while today and went out to lunch with Liz, Sheila, and Beccy then went off to see the new Harry Potter. We both thoroughly enjoyed it but as we entered the cinema there was a cry of "Oy, you," and when we turned around Julian, Moira, Kelly and Carl were seated in the first row of seats by the entrance. We had a brief chat to them after the film and they were off for a meal and we agreed to meet up tomorrow afternoon for a longer chat. It's Kelly's birthday soon and we will take over her card and gift.

It's 10 working weeks since the diggers first arrived and now the work is mostly indoors it is not easy to show any photos that give a good indication of the progress that is happening. The first photo may not look much but it is actually the beginning of the installation of the shower in the bedroom/diner, the tray is in position and the black thing half way up the picture is the shower control, Tony doesn't seem to be having any problems fitting these American devices and hasn't complained about mounting our shower bases on a concrete slab.

The next picture is just a reminder as to what a muddle we continue to live in and is in fact our master bedroom, one that is currently being used to store just about everything a builders yard needs to set up in business. What the camera doesn't show are the tools that litter our bedroom most of which are left on charge over night so that they are ready for use in the morning. The fourth picture may look strange but I just wanted to record that we now have another outside tap which we can use to water the garden in times of drought - not that we are likely to need it in the short term as waves of rain are shown on every forecast that we see. Today was an exception and although we had overnight thunder storms and early morning rain, the rest of the day was dry. The tap is just above that damp patch on the wall and yes that is the round window just waiting for its stained glass.

As a final picture I thought that you might just like to see how the new entrance between the kitchen and the living room looks now that it has been plastered square, Simon has done an excellent job with all the plastering and is quite prepared to make his working companions wait for half an hour before having their break so that he can finish the plastering to his satisfaction. Now that this section of the wall is done it means that we can put the cooker, refrigerator, welsh dresser, and kitchen table more or less back where they will eventually be. So a little normality has arrived in our lives. If only we had light at night and hot water during the day it would be so much more comfortable. However work is progressing on both of those fronts, John has completed a lot more of the wiring and Tony a lot more of the plumbing so with a bit of luck we will see the results of their endeavours at least a few days before we have to leave our new extension to go on holiday. Sam has been strangely absent for the past two days and each time we mention his name the topic of conversation is rapidly changed so we don't know if he will ever come back. Marcus is here though and still seems to be the general helper for either Tom or Simon. Thanks for all your posts, we read them with interest and look forward to your comments.