Have you heard the one about the builders...

As I shiver in the kitchen, trying to defrost my fingers enough to make them tap at the right characters on the keyboard, I wonder how it is that we decided to have our house done up during one of the coldest periods this country has experienced.

We must have been mad.

On top of that I had the crazy idea that I could move my office to the conservatory. Now this seems more than foolish, damn well stupid. The kitchen with its wood burning stove, where I've decamped to, is cold enough.

We've now been without heating for over two weeks, after the plumbers did what in the industry is professionally called 'The 1st Fix'. This means everything is ripped out, all radiators, taps and loos are disconnected, and some new pipework is installed. It does not, however, mean that anything at all is working. It just means that the builders can get on and do their bit of filling, plastering, tiling and general dust creation. Then the plumbers return for 2nd Fix when all is shiny and finished. They'll reconnect all pipework and the heating, hot water and wastes will all be working again. Seems like an impossible dream at the moment.

None of this should come as a surprise to me. With my professional history I should be more then well informed about the procedures involved in house refurbishments. Unfortunately though, as is the case with most people in the construction industry, I'm an optimist. I forget how much dust there is, how not having heating for several weeks renders the very fabric of the house damp and cold, how having just the one loo means you have to share it with people you don't know at all, how the dust, grit and plaster gets everywhere (I mean everywhere), how slowly the work sometimes seems to progress, how people often let you down and forget to turn up on the day and at the time they said they would....

But since here in Britain, in my adopted country, one is not supposed to complain, I shall grin and bear it. Besides, the work is almost on schedule. As long as when Daughter is back next week, there is a modicum of conveniences at hand, including the heating back on, I'm happy. At which point, I am absolutely sure, spring will be sprung and the unseasonally warm weather will be the talk of the town.

You heard it here first.

Frozen Brain

OK, so moving my office from the small but cosy room upstairs to The Room With A View possibly wasn't such a brilliant idea after all. At least not in sub-zero temperatures. The conservatory where I'm now supposed to work has a massive radiator pushing out heat at full blast, nicely warming up the birds, and the one insistent mole out in the garden. None of it seems to stay inside to warm my frozen fingers and brain cells. (Can they freeze - answers on a postcard please). The windows all around me, which on a summer's day afford a beautiful view across the rolling fields and hills beyond, are so called double glazed, but not up to the current weather it seems.

'It's all about heat loss,' says husband.

I didn't undertake this excursion of desk, pc and boxes and boxes of files (how did it all fit into that small space above???) on a whim. No, this is part of a carefully costed and drafted plan to tart up the house for a sale later on in the year. I feel like a pimp as I cast a cold eye (excuse the pun) over what we should and shouldn't spend money on.

'People expect quality finishes nowadays,' says (younger than son) Estate Agent.

I feel tired, cold and miserable and it's only Day One of the three month Changing Rooms. Where's the spirit of Carol Smiley when one needs it. I felt more like Frozen Smiley when I greeted the builders this morning. That reminds me, must make them a cup of coffee...ten sugars was it?