OK, the builders are just about done, inside at least, and Dawn has diligently done a lot of the painting (a nice creamy yellow). On Monday morning the kitchen fitter will be here. Indeed, the boxes are already arriving (below). Tony the electrician, my hero, has just about finished wiring in all 29 downlights and [...]

Look carefully. It’s a builder working …at five o’clock. See, I told you these guys were good. Even if this guy (who will have to remain anonymous in case he gets thrown out of the builders’ union) missed the first day of college where they teach you that the number one rule of construction is [...]

Of course you were all wondering what was going on inside the extension, weren’t you? No? Well, here it is anyway. Twice the kitchen! 100% less worktop and storage space (for now). The wiring is all in place for the groovy lighting, and once the plumber is happy, they’ll be boarding up. Mustn’t forget my [...]

Now that’s looking like an extension. The lads done great. Windows, roof …it could almost be finished. Except for the small matter of the internals. But now the inner wall has come down and we have an idea of what the new kitchen space will look like. It’s exactly twice the size of the old [...]

Yay. The extension continues to soar skywards. The builders seem to be doing a great job (yeah, like I’m some sort of expert who’s qualified to judge) and they hope to be starting on the roof this weekend. Now we can see the size of the extremely large windows we specified, they’re admittedly huge, but [...]

It’s been an odd week for Alex. After the triumph of Emma’s birthday party at the weekend, where he won a certificate for his full-on, virtuoso air guitar performance (not to mention a lorryload of fatherly pride), yesterday he had to go in to Addenbrooke’s to have both his legs plastered up for a fortnight. [...]

Well, progress might best be described as “steady” rather than sensational, but it has been raining, and the council inspectors’ lack of instant availability doesn’t help that much. However, we’ve got a lot of the brick and blockwork in place. Doesn’t it look nice? They’re going to have to leave the big gap to get [...]

It was quite nice turf, really. But you’ll have to take our word for it. Or, if it hasn’t been updated, the evidence is at Google Maps. Now there’s just mud, glorious mud. And some nice footings. And of course “the most difficult bit of drain to move I’ve ever, ever come across in all [...]

So when the neighbours were out at work, we blocked up the road for an hour with this huge great cement mixer, which discharged about fifty wheelbarrowloads (is that an imperial or metric unit?) of wet concrete and they went straight into our footings. All that digging, and the whole thing got filled up in [...]