It was bad news. Two more exploratory holes, two more wet and muddy hands.

The kitchen is an extension. The problem wall, therefore, a ‘modern’ liner that covered the cob wall of the original house. It would have to come down. It didn’t take long. Nor did it take long to find the cause of the damp. Yet another rotten central heating pipe.

The trouble with demolition is that it is apt to become contagious. When I risked a peek around the doorway of the downstairs loo, tiles had been removed from the wall. The housing was off the soil stack and the carpet coming up. They were trying to find the origin of the kitchen pipework in the hope that it could be bypassed at source. Mike’s Plumber was rooting around in the corner underneath the sink, his generous anatomy overflowing as is the way.

It was not to be his day. Or mine.

“Friggin’ Hell.” He had found a hole in the concrete floor, barely concealed by a square piece of ply. Underneath it was an open drain. I had always fretted about the smell in that room. However obsessively I tried to clean it, a stubborn aroma remained. It could have been worse. Only the sink empties into it. But indoor venting of the waste water system is never a good idea. (Photo intentionally withheld.)

So with the kitchen barely started, another huge job is thrust upon us. A makeover for the smallest room had been way down the list. Mike’s Plumber listened to my plans, in a disinterested sort of way.

Could I move the loo to the other side of the room? “I suppose..”

And put a sparkly new ladder towel rail where the loo had been? “Maybe.”

Maybe this latest turn of events could be no bad thing after all. A dream bathroom scenario is forming in my head. A rustic old oak cupboard with a counter top basin…

Mike’s Plumber clearly doesn’t read the same magazines. “Oh, that won’t work at all”

“..with a tap that’s fixed directly into the wall”

“I really don’t like those”

I’m starting to get annoyed.

“Well I do.”