Illness at home stopped me going back there after an Ipswich weekend, so I spent last night at the house. It was the first time I’d slept there in three or four months, and a lot has changed.

For one thing the bathroom is now quite nice. Admittedly it’s still missing a floor, but it’s much more pleasant getting showered there under an old-fashioned wide-spraying head than it was under the tepid trickle it had before (it’s a bonus, also, to be able to stand up straight now the shower has moved, rather than standing at an angle in the eaves). For another, there’s now enough room in the kitchen to actually make proper food, although I have to admit to chickening out on that count this time around and buying curry and rice from the Tesco Express, before I realised it was supposed to be microwaved. As I don’t currently have one, I put it in the oven, and a couple of burnt edges aside it was actually quite good. Had I got home sooner, and not then spent two hours clearing out the lounge, I would have pulled some veg from the garden and eaten that instead, but they’ll keep.

Then there’s the heating. The radiators haven’t been changed, but the boiler that fills them has, and I don’t think the poor things are used to being driven quite so hard. I woke up just after two as the bedroom radiator (I couldn’t work out on the thermostat how you turn them off overnight) started to buzz and rattle like it was filled with angry bees. I fiddled with a knob at one end and it seemed to stop, but an hour later it was banging so furiously I thought it must have been something the neighbours were doing. It took more knob fiddling to get it sorted out this time, but it did eventually stop.

So it looks like even before I move in I’m going to have to get things repaired, and I’m already glad of my guarantees. Although it’s been an unparalleled luxury being able to sort out the renovations before actually moving in, the length of time it’s taken to get things done means that some of the earliest jobs are already half way through their warranties, and that’s slightly worrying.

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