Badger Towers

Friday 26th March

I have a helper!  Herbie, Action Maori Executive, joins me to get some jobs done by cycling from Kidlington and arriving a full 40 minutes early.  Just as we’re getting started Martin the electrician calls inviting us to Full English Friday.  Herb’s on a roll and I can’t leave him on his own to stuff my face with bacon. This means we end up working from 10-4 without a break.  Hunger is psychological anyway, yes?

Me and Mrs Badger deliberate on the phone over the removal of the kitchen ceiling.  If we don’t remove it we’ll never know the state of the bathroom joists.  It would make the electrician and plumber’s jobs much easier, and perhaps save some upstairs floorboards in the process.  Problem is, plasterboard is now a restricted disposal material or something and must be disposed of separately at a cost. Furthermore it can’t be left outside before disposal because when it gets wet it doubles in weight. Marvellous.

I go for a trip to the recycling centre (what we used to call “the tip” in the 80s) to throw away the ivy from my half-finished job last week and go to ask the men at the trade waste weighbridge if I can dispose of my own plasterboard, in my own car, for free.  Before I have a chance to speak one of them reports Abingdon Windows for dumping plasterboard hidden under rubble to avoid paying.  Ha, busted! They tell me a third of a tonne is the minimum weight and will cost me £64.  Damn. 

RecyclingMan: “How much does it weigh?”

Me: “What, my ceiling? Er…  Err…”

RecyclingMan: “Roughly”

Me: “Er, I… I’ve never been asked that before”

Back at Badger Towers 2, armed with a new, cheaper quote from Bucks Recycling Skip Hire (http://www.bucksrecycling.co.uk/) we prise the plasterboard off the ceiling with Martin the Electrician’s suggested technique of using A SPADE as a lever. Works a treat and great slabs of plasterboard start falling from the ceiling.  It turns out we have two layers of plasterboard and then the lath (wooden sticks) from the old lath & plaster ceiling from years ago. John was going to tack another layer of plasterboard onto the ceiling, which would have made me Ben “Four Ceilings” Ward. A lucky escape. 

The first two layers come down with a satisfying crash and billowing dust. It looks like 9/11 in our kitchen. I have plaster in my ears, down my shirt and in my pockets. My goggles steam up instantly so I’m just working by touch, propping up large slabs of plasterboard as they hinge on paper and funnel 100 years of plaster and bathroom detritus onto my head.

What are we going to carry it in? I dash (in Friday rush hour traffic) to Jewson and buy a 1 tonne bag.  “Do you want a bag for that?” says the bloke behind the counter. They’re taking the piss again aren’t they?

As we merrily fill the 1 tonne bag with plasterboard a thought occurs to me.  I can’t lift a tonne to the front of the house. Gah, this builder thing is harder than it looks.  I decide to buy rubble sacks tomorrow and we leave the 1 tonne (hopefully) of ceiling on the floor.

Found today:

Millions of conkers

Lots of sweetie wrappers:

A dinosaur colouring picture & some pencils:

Some boot, a knob and a bead: