We have a race on…!!!!!…
Oh, Our fellow Huf Haus client in Switzerland is 7 days ahead??? ( see http://huf-haus.blogspot.com/ )
Even the problems over the colour of the tiles from grey to red didn’t delay…… Huf Haus managed the change them back again effortlessly.!!!!

And I guess the Statutory Undertakers there in Switzerland ( Gas and Electricity Suppliers) will be a tad more efficient than those in dear ol’ blighty.
I put my applications in weeks ago and pleaded with the girl on the other end of the phone yesterday ‘if I could pay now for the Gas connection’
‘No’ she said, ‘you have to wait till the quotation arrives, send off the acceptance form and then the cheque, and then we will programme it’
‘Great, that will be March 2007 I guess’ I did explain I will have moved in for a long time without any heating except for a portable BBQ and a pile of newspapers and would be a couple of years older before all this happened’ but she seemed unimpressed. ( I think she may have been speaking from Bombay )

British Telecom have been fantastic…..a call to them yesterday triggered a surveyor on the site this morning who said he would drop round some duct which we could lay to the telegraph pole. Amazing service !!!!!

Now, we need the gas and electricity to heat the house and to dry the floor screed (Week 51 ). That is on the critical path for moving in. That also is on my critical path for getting out of the rented house we are in, whilst the gas and electricity companies debate whether or not to accept my money. We are currently sinking under the weight of boxes in this rented house full of trivia that my wife considers absolutely essential until we move. Then I will be taking all of these boxes to the charity shops because they do not fit with this new ‘minimalist cool’ environment which is Huf Haus.

The Huf letter which arrived today advises me that they could finish the house by week 9, 2007 if we can get the electricity and gas supplied on time. That’s the end of February…..but it depends on achieving the impossible with our privatised energy companies who now need three separate organisations to quote, fill in forms and receive confirmation second class mail to complete one connection from the main to the plant room in the basement. Anybody out there got any ideas to quicken it all up????
Perhaps if I said I could smell Gas ??? would I get a crew out quickly ? and while they were sniffing it all out, they could connect my meter into the system??

Meanwhile…..back in Switzerland, my fellow blogger Ric must be smugly sitting on his deckchair in his new Huf Haus admiring the view and watching the snowline advance…that’s my only chance of victory …..that there is a large dump of white stuff which holds progress back for a couple of weeks. I wouldn’t wish it to be delayed any longer because he has a loving family to get moved in, but just long enough for me to get a couple of days ahead. Meanwhile the weather forecast here is just rain!!!