9.30am We expected to be out all day today helping Hilary's sister but a late night 'phone call changed all that. Apparently Liz has only one day off work this week and needs to go out and get some groceries in and recharge her internal battery. So our trip over there has been delayed until tomorrow. In the meantime, after using our miniature wash basin and loo for our morning ablutions, Hilary and I decided to rip out a small cupboard in our bedroom which will become the passageway to the new master en-suite. It was surprisingly easy as apparently when I constructed it some 12 years ago I didn't overdue the fixing of it to the wall. I was obviously short of decent screws at the time as I uncovered a variety of cross head, Philips head and even brass mirror fixing screws; what wasn't screwed was nailed straight into the plaster. We have revealed an alcove that once held a wash basin and what looks to be the end of a disused chimney breast. Our thoughts now are that once our bedroom ceiling is removed, (to make way for the upstairs extension), we might see how the chimney attaches to the spine of the house and if it is feasible we will take the whole thing down and use the space to increase our closet area - we might even get a walk in closet. Now there's posh for you!

Simon and Marcus arrived about 8.45am in bright sunshine for a change and immediately laid into ripping out all the old clay pipe right down to the manhole by the steps. This means that until the pipes are re-laid all of us will be without toilet facilities. Thank God for neighbours - we can go to Rachel next door while Simon and Marcus can use the loo over at Tony's "sort of in-laws". The weather is due to change again by midday with squally showers coming in from the west and these are expected to last all weekend, let's hope for the workers sake that it finally comes good on Monday. This latest photo shows the side of the house that has seen most of the recent activity. All the mud, supplies and cement have been barrowed along this stretch before the drains were ripped out.

5.00pm We left our workmen battling the rain, the lack of rise for the new drains and the narrowness of the space to work in, but on our return we were pleased to find that we have working loos and a working shower again. The new pipes have been accurately sloped with much laser theodolite working but can't be covered over in their new position until the building inspector has been to give his approval. Simon did his best to explain to me that the fall should be 1" per metre - see we haven't gone completely metric in England yet - and we had less than that, however he thought that the inspector would pass it. He wanted to see Tony who hasn't been around for a couple of days and I think that when the rains came back at 3.30pm both he and Marcus just decided to call it a day. Of course within 30 minutes of them leaving the rain stopped and as I write this I can see hazy sunshine breaking through the clouds again. The new forecast for the weekend is fair, however now the long range forecast is for more squalls coming up from the west.

The rapid pace of the building work has made Hilary and I think again about where we are going to put all our stuff while they tear out our walls and take down our roof. We have been hoping that we could rent a local storage unit but so far there has not been one available. Last night Hilary called around and found a new place about 10 miles away that has some 100 square foot units available for a reasonable price so we went out today to take a look. We ended up agreeing to a 3 month let starting in 2 weeks time so part of this evening will be spent boxing up books and knick knacks that are cluttering up the attic and the study. Of course I will make sure that my 300+ collection of hippos will be well packed, our hardest choice will be which clothes to store and which to keep - there is going to be a lot of knicker washing in the weeks to come! The distance means that we will probably rent a van for a day and try and make the move in as few shuttles as possible; yet another expense that we hadn't bargained for. One of our objectives in going out for the day, apart from being able to use "the facilities" in the stores while our drains were being ripped out, was to buy some more storage bags that we can suck air from to reduce the volume of stuff that we have to store. Needless to say, having fixed our rented storage problem we forgot all about vacuum storage bags and went to look at wall tiles instead. At the third store we found some really nice ones that were reasonably priced and ended up handing over the old plastic card for 14 square metres, which should be enough to cover the walls of the smaller shower room downstairs and the small amount of tiling that will be in the family bath upstairs. Tomorrow we will look for vacuum storage bags!