Badger Towers

Wed 3rd March

We turn up at lunchtime and the floor’s gone already.  Incredibly it all fits in the back bedroom.  Two of the joists are rotten at one end, but apart from that the floor’s in pretty good condition.  Unfortunately the joists are only 4 inches deep, so the underfloor heating becomes a little bit more complicated.  You can’t notch 4-inch joists to pass the underfloor heating pipe from side to side, so John is going to bolt some bracing onto them and build some dwarf walls at intervals to support the weight of the screed. I nod like I understand.

There’s a home-made cabin bed in the corner of the 3rd bedroom, with battens screwed down.  I get my power tool out. Unfortunately it’s a drill, not a screwdriver, despite being supplied with screw bits, so just skids everywhere whenever it encounters resistance. The battens are gone, but the wall supports stay for now.

Mrs Badger is scraping wallpaper in her best coat with one hand in her pocket.  Bless her.

I retreat to the back garden, which is useable, but overgrown.  I launch a counter-attack on the ivy which has invaded  nearly every corner of the garden.  Then I take the secateurs and start cutting the forest of bamboo into canes for later re-use.  We going to need to eat a lot of yoghurt to get enough pots to cover the ends of this lot.

Back into the house for a bit of a change and we kick the plasterboard in covering Bedroom 1’s fireplace in to see if there’s anything worth saving. There isn’t.  I attack the “fitted” wardrobes.  I say fitted, but they’re MFI wardrobes with a corner cut out to fit over the chimney breast. A bodge job.  I go at them with a crowbar, discovering all sorts of stuff behind (see ‘found today’ below).

It’s all moving very quickly, which makes it exciting.  It’s getting worse before it gets better though.

Found Today

Under the floor
Coke can (integrated ring pull, not a great find)

Behind the ‘fitted’ wardrobes

Instructions for Scrabble with some scores scrawled on one side

Knitting pattern for fashion hats

Wrapping paper which fell down the back of the wardrobe

Some of the funkiest wallpaper ever. Blue and silver.

Under the cabin bed
a cheque for £50
some 2ps


maths homework (“simultaneous equations part deux”)

a receipt for £10 Cellnet credit from The Link from 1999.