Its 19th February...Concrete has set!!!

You can now walk around the house without getting knee deep in mud, so the last week has seen a major change. I counted up the slate tiles I had bought before Xmas only to find I was around 400 short. I have a feeling someone may have been quietly sneaking off with them but never mind I took myself off to 'Rock Unique' near Sevenoaks and they can supply me with replacements that match quite well.

There are 1047 tiles to lay and thankfully I won't be laying them. Then its the re-grading of the garden and then its some plants. I'm sure that the soil will have baked hard by then in the long hot summer that is to come and I'll need that digger back to make the holes, but hey, this is the excitement of doing your own house.

The Magnet Kitchen people came back to me (see last entry) and had reconsidered their approach. They had originally said that the faulty doors and drawer fronts had to be dismantled by me and I had to fit the replacements.....but they came back today to say they would arrange it all.....Send the lads in to put everything right. That's a relief as it will be bad enough removing everything my dear wife has put in them...just about a shipping container full of kitchen equipment in every one of those drawers!.

Volker , the Huf Basement expert came from Germany today to inspect the retaining wall as well. I hadn't seen him since those November days in 06 when the site was just a great big hole in the ground. There had been some moisture coming through the retaining wall, through the lifting lugs of the wall units that was causing the paint to lift on the front face.

Volker only does basements and concrete. He's the Huf basement manager...he knows about basements and concrte.......He inspected......long and hard.....'Yes' he muttered, 'Oh Yes' and then took a screwdriver to the lugs and prised out a plastic plug. 'Its not me, but the painters' he says with a big grin.....'Not my team!'. He explained that these lugs should have been removed and replaced with a compound before painting. He was going back to Germany that evening and would get it sorted.............'But he emphasised...Its NOT my team's work.!!! Again, if there's anything that needs fixing, its done without a quibble.That's Huf for you!!

He mentioned in passing that Huf are doing some houses in Bejing.....the Moscow one had been finished recently . Imagine the logistics of lugging one of these houses all the way to China ! We said our goodbyes and he was going off to another couple of sites before returning to Hartenfels ( an hour south of Cologne) that evening.

The previous day, Nick the Huf plumber had driven from Germany to do some maintenance. He said that he had left at 1am and had already visited another site before coming to me at 11.30am. I guess most English plumbers would be just turning out of bed at that time!!!!

I had been trying to source some Huf black paint for the multitude of timbers that are going in the garden. Huf had quoted me 530 Euros for 20 litres....yes 530. I spent a few minutes on the web and found a UK supplier of the same German paint for over 75% less......so that being a good day's work, I opened a bottle of Beaujolais Villages and everything seems good!!

It was quite clear to me now that Januray was not the best time of year to be doing landscaping.

This January was special as well since it was the wettest on record since Noah took to his Ark.



One visitor here likened the situation to the Somme and the helpful comments we heard like 'Well, Its good for the Garden' ...............Well it would be GREAT if we had one!!!!!



Despite the meteorological challenges we did make some progress and as the mornings got lighter and the days a bit drier we continued in our quest to get the patch into some sort of order. Our Landscape Contractor Tim, has been doing a great job.



Yesterday was exciting if you are into big toys....we had a mobile batch mixer with pump on site to deliver our concrete...photos attached...by lunchtime they had pumped around 15 cu metres onto the site with a few retained firemen from the local station helping Tim...you can see the professional way that they handle the pump hose!!!!



Huf are due to come and do their annual inspection in a couple of weeks.....everything works pretty much perfectly and I hav very little to moan about.



A jounalist from the Sunday Express has said she wants to do a feature on the Huf Hauses, keep an eye open for photos of this one in the Sunday rags!!!



I just wish I had stuck to a German Kitchen, after all everything else here is German......we had a nicely designed model from Magnet, but the trouble is the veneer is falling off after only nine months....imagine what its going to be like after 9 years. Those peoplle at Magnet suggested that I remove all the doors take them to Tunbridge Wells and they would swop them with some new ones............. Nice idea, but are they in the real world.???