Yesterday when the cement didn't arrive Simon and Sam came and had a look at the kitchen indoors where we are planning to have the doorway moved. When they realised that it would mean moving the kitchen cupboard, the grandfather clock and much of the dining room furniture they decided not to proceed and went to work next door. This morning when they heard that the cement wasn't coming they decided to work indoors instead and so Hilary and I moved the living/dining room around and then helped them rip out the kitchen cabinet against the wall. For the next three hours we had hammer drills stitching down the walls and across the top where the new lintel will be and despite the dust sheets laid down the whole house is covered in a fine white powder. Conversation is impossible and 'phone calls have to be taken outside where at least it is not raining today. One of the good decisions we made early on was to take the fuse out for the cooker as Simon had only been going for about an hour when as the dust cleared he realised that he had managed to cut through the electricity feed to the cooker box. My last job tonight, if we want dinner, is to move the cooker control unit up - it will be nearly on the ceiling - and lengthen the cable feeding the cooler itself. Luckily I have some spare cable and this will keep us going temporarily until the whole house is rewired.

I have also kept myself amused in the study upstairs away from the noise by arguing with all the controllers that I can find in CityLink delivery service about my missing laptop. They ticked me off today by putting a notice on their website that they had attempted delivery and failed but that it would be delivered today. I told them in no uncertain terms that they had not attempted delivery, they had merely loaded it onto a van at the beginning of the day and then taken it off at the end of the day. No matter how hard I try I cannot make them see that they have a problem at the Plymouth branch and a communication problem in general. All phone calls go to the regional office in Cardiff who apparently do nothing except read computer monitors and repeat parrot fashion whant these screens say to their customers. It is the first time that I have had delivery problems with goods ordered over the internet and I hope it is the last - it is very time consuming, but fun - especially putting a rocket up the backside of these "jobsworths" who can't break out of their rigid set of rules.

Now that the internal work is underway and the place is in a mess I have just heard (12.30pm) that the cement will be arriving today after all, so Simon and Sam will be on wheelbarrow duty in a few hours time. It will be good to have the slab down as the real building work can then commence, the only disappointment is that as we tend to build everything with blocks in England it is very difficult to change one's mind if you want a wall moved a few inches. Why oh why don't we adopt the American wood framing system.

OK so two deliveries today, one for the cement (who cares?) and one Toshiba P100-160 laptop hooray! Both arrived around the same time so while many wheelbarrows were being carted I was sitting in a dusty conservatory firing up a laptop. So far it all seems to be working well and even connected to the internet after I had given it the correct security code. Vista is a mystery to me but I am looking forward to learning it. I did my favourite trick of removing ALL references to Norton, a company I detest for the amount of junk that they install on a computer and they just slow it down to a crawl. Now I have to install all my favourite software a process which will give me many happy hours and Hilary many lonely moments.

After the cement arrived and the slab was tamped down, Simon and Sam came back to finish off the hole in the wall and I managed to get a snap of Sam. He is on a gap year and doesn't know what he wants to do - this puts him between 18 and 19 years old - but he thinks that Durham University sounds nice and maybe "something to do with Geography." We heard that Marcus is back tomorrow so he will get a chance to see Chub Tor in the sunshine - at the moment it is absolutley glorious with clear blue skies and very little wind. I have even turned off the Central Heating.