0800 this morning - the alarm clock woke me with its usual dulcet tones! That, I have to tell you, is early as I am a night owl who can still be wide awake at 2.00 or 3.00a.m. I’d purposely put the alarm clock out of reach so that I had to get up to switch it off!
0801 – I’m up! The workmen who are replacing my windows and doors are due to arrive between 8.30 and 9.00, so I must get organised before they get here.
0815 – Dressed and ready to go. Haven’t had breakfast yet but that can wait. Cleared a few more things from the kitchen as that is one of the rooms they will do today. The bathroom and the spare room are ready with plenty of room around the windows, but the other two rooms at the back are full of stuff now! Not to worry! These rooms won’t be done today.
0825 – There’s a man coming down the close now, looking puzzled! I bet it’s me he’s looking for! Despite giving instructions no-one seems to realise that when I say my place is through the close and down the stairs, I actually mean it! I’ll go and find out!
0830 – Yes, it’s Ashley and his sidekick Jack. Jack is a young Polish lad. Now that they’ve ascertained that this is in fact the right spot they have gone back up the steps to start unloading the new windows and carry them down the stairs. It’s not the easiest of places to get to when you have a heavy load to carry. I know that well just from going to the local supermarket and back! I wouldn’t like to have to carry double glazed windows down here!
0845 - the first couple of windows have arrived in the garden. They look too big for the window spaces, but I’m sure they aren’t! They had better not be! (A friend had that happen to him last year!)
0905 – the windows are all in the garden now, dustsheets have been laid in the spare room; tools, a large plastic dustbin and a Henry Hoover are ready and waiting! Ashley and Jack are away back to the van for their breakfast! So I will have mine too!
0915 – work has begun! The spare room window is being persuaded gently with a hammer to vacate the window space! It seems to be quite a tough old thing! The old glass has cracked and Jack has fitted some tape across so they can break the glass safely. There it goes!
0935 – The window frame is almost out. Ashley’s a happy soul! He’s singing away to himself – and Jack! The dustbin is filling up with bits of glass and frame, and at last there is a hole in the wall ready for the new window to be installed, and wouldn’t you know it, the rain has started again! Thankfully it’s not cold and breezy today, but there is a difference in temperature now that the window is out! Nothing I can’t handle though!!
1035 - After a few wee minor problems the new window is almost in place! Way hey! That’s the first one, so there had to be a ceremonial photo – taken in the rain! That’s Ashley, by the way.
You’ll be glad to know that I am not going to talk you through the whole day, but suffice to say that when the guys left, the kitchen and bathroom windows were in too, but have still to be finished off inside with their facings, while the spare room one is finished altogether. Jack was a wiz with the Henry cleaning up after themselves. I told him the carpet hadn’t had as good a clean for a while, and that perhaps I should keep him! Do you cook as well? I asked him. ( That’s a benefit of age! I would never have dared say something like that before! ) So now I am off to move stuff out of the back rooms into the spare room, so that the guys can get near the windows in the other two rooms tomorrow.
One of the windows is being transformed into French windows onto the balcony,
so the builder came along today to start doing the cut out – from the outside, on the balcony! Tomorrow the rest will be cut out and presumably the door and side windows will be fitted by the end of the day.
Here’s my computerised 
impression of what they will look like! I had fun playing with this – months ago when the idea first came to me! It’s not perfect but it gives you the idea!
Anyway, I said I was off to move stuff so I think I had better get started!
Talk again soon!
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