The chips are down - at last

Today was a momentous day: the felt and stone chips went on the roof. And in the evening water gushed down the kitchen wall, for the third time in about six weeks. Once again I found myself up on the roof attempting to improvise a solution; tools deployed have included bricks, blocks of wood, plastic sheeting, a broom and a length of guttering. In the roofers' defence, the latest waterfall wasn't their fault: the downpipe had been removed to give them a clear space and all the cloudburst collected by the main house roof soaked into the wall instead, until it ran out of the gap at the bottom where the ceiling would normally be. And of all the people who've worked on the extension so far, the roofers' is the job I really wouldn't want to do: hot tar, baking temperatures, no shade, heavy materials up and down ladders, a set of clothes ruined each day.

Today I was told that whatever estimate I had for the extension, I should add a third. Had the guy been looking at my pile of invoices? Part of the trouble is that the gerrybuilding of the house we bought wasn't limited to what we'd already identified. The flat roof had to be seen to be believed - although not if you have a weak heart. It was constructed using friction, levitation and crossed fingers. Not to mention two half-bricks holding up one entire corner of the house. I can only think the builder (who lives very nearby) was distracted by his horse bucking or his stetson falling off. Our neighbour looked rather alarmed when I told her why a large section of the roof was being reconstructed: he built hers too.

The house had about 400 miles of pipes, its own gas leak, sockets wired into the wrong circuits and one ring main that just needs to be ripped out - which fortunately it was going to be anyway as part of the planned works. All these are things we would rather not have to pay to put right - over two grand and counting - but are glad to have found now rather than later. It turns out one of today's roofers did the felt on the original extension back in 1989, although his work was ripped up by the previous owners. We hope his workmanship is better than the rest.

Although he hasn't been on site as much as we anticipated, Colin has worked extremely hard. We now have a roof with the correct number of joists that slopes the right way and supports the bay above. All the doors windows are in, if you overlook the one which needs to be refitted because I got the measurements wrong. The whizzy remote-controlled garage door is in. The plumber moved the boiler. Our new fridge-freezer arrived today and the old one has a new home, as do most of the kitchen units. A skip lorry did a wheelie this afternoon whilst taking away at least four tons of assorted debris. And the whole place still looks like a bombsite.