Another Brick in the Wall

Now that the autumn sun’s finally broke and the nights are stretching out, it’s probably time for some more rumours. One rumour in particular has been doing the rounds, and it might well be true: our extension is finally on the way!

Doing the rounds also is an endless succession of builders, plumbers, gas engineers, sewage surveyors, structural engineers, dump runs, and a “constantly mutating swarm of issues”. The architect’s been around so often, we’ve been forced to root through our Primary Rules’ small print to see if we’re obliged to charge rent.

Frustratingly, the minutiae of roof pitch incline, clearance for fascias, and the wobbling to-and-fro of party wall boundaries, has all conspired to eat away at the area of our new rooms – but it’s all still a solid foundation to build from. A distressing amount of co-op meetings have been dedicated of late to the exact placement of radiators and light fittings, not to mention bean-counting over costs – but it will all be worth it if we can keep future rents down, and have more toilets to queue at.

Bonus Point: our drinking water is now finally lead-free! Now, we just need to find a way of eradicating it from practically every wall in the house…

P.S. – once the extension’s done (probably around the start of ‘24), we’ll be looking for new members.

P.P.S. – we were caught off-guard by the timing involved in accessing our Radical Routes loan, so we are currently looking for bridging loans to tide us over for the next three months-ish, so as to avoid further construction delays. At the time of writing we still need around £7,000, at negotiable interest rates of 0 to 3%, so if you think you can spot us some short-term funds, please let us know!

Right, that’s enough about all that.

In mid-September, we gave Pop-Dog a final send-off, planting her a tree and scattering her to the seven seas. It’s a final close to a sad chapter for us, but at least we managed to not quite fall in, or get ashes blown down our mouths.