I thought of several titles for today's blog before I settled on Gutted, it could have been Another Short Day as Marcus and Sam both left before 1.00pm or it could have been Toothless as I went to the dentist today and had a tooth pulled. It has been giving me gyp for some time now and a couple of months ago I had it filled when I complained about a constant ache. The dentist told me that he could take out the nerve but a) It would take at least 2 visits and b) It isn't always successful, so we agreed that extraction would be the best choice. I had three injections to start then another one when he started to pull and it hurt me a bit, after that I was as high as a kite and it came out in one piece and totally painlessly. That is until the anaesthetic wore off and I had to resort to the Coproxamol and ice water. As I write this I know that it's gone but it isn't too painful and at least over 4 hours has elapsed and I am allowed to drink tea again.

Simon and Marcus both arrived by 8.45am today and got stuck into ripping out the ceiling in our bedroom, they left the little bit over our built in wardrobe as I had attached the sliding door gear to the ceiling and they didn't want my construction to fall down. I noticed after they had left that the doors don't slide anymore but I think that it will be simple to fix. With the ceiling down they ripped out the last of the asbestos and then Marcus went off to get the digger so that they could do the clearing up. As both Hilary and I were away until after they left we didn't see the actual clear up and to be honest we were a little disappointed on our return to see that there was still some rubble piled up close to the leat. We are expecting that Tony will arrange for its disposal on his return from the mud hole called Glastonbury.

The pictures that I took today were after all the work was done so I can't show the mess in our bedroom - we actually have muddy wheelbarrow tracks all across our fitted green carpet - but they do give a good indication as to how derelict our house has become. We are hoping that it won't get any worse than this. The picture above is taken from our bedroom doorway and the one on the right is taken from directly above that spot so you can see why I called this day Gutted; we basically have no walls or ceilings in either of our two downstairs bedrooms so roll on Monday when construction rather than destruction can start.

The last two pictures were also taken from upstairs and one of them reveals the old chimneys that must have fed the fireplaces in the bedrooms some many years ago. The house is over 70 years old and was built long before central heating was available and obviously at a time when asbestos sheeting was seen as the perfect way to provide flat walls that had good thermal insulation properties. How times change! The final picture shows the view from that upstairs window again, this time from a little further back on account of there not being any floor to walk on. Monday should see the return of Simon and we are hoping that he will crack on and get some timbers put in so that we can have both an upstairs floor and a downstairs ceiling. In theory Tony should be back on Monday as well and we are expecting him to drain down the central heating radiators and take out the old pipes. This will leave us relying on an immersion heater for the hot water (very expensive) and will also probably mean that we have to move the fridge/freezer and the washer/drier from the laundry room. We leave for our vacation on August 6 and by that time we need to have a house that is secure as well as reasonably habitable although it is unlikely that all the new bathrooms will be tiled, floored and painted. As long as we have one working bath/shower and a loo we will be OK.