Cycle city (July 2007)

It's been a good summer for cycling, despite the awful weather (it hailed two weeks ago!). On Sunday 17 June we were woken up at 6am by the sound of helicopters circling above the house. We didn't realise until we heard lots of voices outside that the London to Brighton Bike Ride was going past our house! It took 4 hours for all 27,000 participants to ride past, and it was quite a spectacle.

On 6-8 July, London hosted the Tour de France for the first time. Transport for London needed lots of staff to help out with the event, so I volunteered, even though I didn't really know anything about the Tour de France at the time! I now know a lot more about it, and I am completely hooked! It's the biggest annual sporting event in the world (in terms of spectator numbers), and one of the most gruelling - the 200 or so riders travel 3,500km over 3 weeks and have to cope with vertical climbs of up to 2000m on some of the race stages. The Tour is famous for its arduous race schedule, dangerous mountain stages, crazy roadside spectators, drug controversies, spectacular crashes and beautiful scenery. The complex point scoring system, interesting team tactics and nail-biting sprint finishes make for riveting viewing. There is one kiwi cyclist competing (Julian Dean), five Brits and several Aussies (many of whom have already dropped out). Check out the Tour de France website, and more info on http://tour.itv.com/.

London hosted the start of the Tour (Prologue and Stage 1), which meant a whole week of activity. One of my tasks was to cycle the Prologue circuit and the first part of the 200km Stage 1 route during the preceding week, in order to identify any hazards, 'guerilla' advertising, etc. During the day of the Prologue, I managed a team of seven people providing event and travel information to the general public. The whole event was a fantastic experience and it was so exciting to be part of such a big event. For London, and TfL, it was essentially a dress rehearsal for the Olympics (on a smaller scale). After weeks of miserable weather, London turned on the sun for the one weekend when it really mattered! An estimated 2 million people turned up to watch the event in London, with a further 2 million watching along the rest of the Stage 1 route through the Kent countryside.

The Prologue was a 7.9km time trial around central London where the cyclists started the race one minute apart. The winner, Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland), was the only rider to complete the circuit in under 9 minutes. Here is one of the guys whizzing past Windsor House, where I work (the big brown building left of centre).

After being on my feet for about 10 hours in the sun on the Saturday at the Prologue, I was exhausted. But I couldn't miss the Grand Départ on the Sunday, when the riders and their huge entourage set off en masse to begin Stage 1 of the Tour. So I got up early on the Sunday morning to get a good spot. It was worth it - I had an excellent view.

Ken Livingstone, our London Mayor, is standing (left hand side) in the red car, just ahead of the riders.
Here come the riders! Fabian Cancellara (winner of yesterday's Prologue race) is in the yellow jersey, and one of our British hopefuls, Mark Cavendish (Isle of Man), is in the pink jersey on the far left. It was all over in about 20 seconds, but it was colourful while it lasted!

I had a great spot right by Big Ben. I didn't need to look at my watch at all; I only needed to listen out for the reassuring quarter-hour chime.

After the riders had departed, everyone retired to the parks to watch the 5 hour race on big screens. The deckchairs were popular!

Plumbing and plastering (June 2007)

Nice new floorboards, the beginnings of a new wall, and best of all, no more orange!
Man and machine! This massive drill is for making holes in our external brick walls, for the new drainage pipes.

We had to cut into the existing drainage pipe from the kitchen sink, in order to connect the new bathroom basin to it. The drainage pipe was seriously blocked and stank to high heaven! Clearing out the blockage turned out to be a very messy task, requiring the purchase of some industrial-strength drain unblocking products. Not one of our favourite jobs.

Plastering was also a challenge - there really is an art to it. We had to rely on sanding to get a smooth finish. Plaster dust really gets everywhere! And it turned George into a ghost.

This is the beginning of our new bathroom. The bath is plumbed in, and the floor and wall are mostly in (still to be tiled).

No more bedroom (April - June 2007)

Since April we have been sleeping in the living room. Needless to say, it's pretty cramped! The entire contents of our bedroom are either in this room, the attic or the tip. The computer sits on top of a chest of drawers containing T-shirts and jeans. It's actually surprisingly comfortable, and you certainly don't have to travel far to get a drink in the middle of the night!
What was once our bedroom is now a proper building site. We ripped out the south side of the wall between the bedroom and kitchen/living room, in order to build supports for the rest of the joists.
The demolition of this wall created lots of mess, and firewood! The amount of heavy rubble and loose concrete inside the wall was quite staggering. Around this point we gave up trying to keep the floors clean all the time. No more bare feet in the house. We do our best, but as soon as we do any cleaning, the dust comes straight back again. The kitchen/living room doesn't escape a dusting whenever we're working in the other room, because the wall between the two rooms has a big gap along the top and side. Every time we need to use anything - clothes, shoes, computer, kitchen items, books - it has to be wiped clean first.

The next thing to be removed was the carpet and underlays, revealing old, splitting floorboards underneath.
The back room is now completely open to the stairs, as is the bathroom. This is not a place for the inhibited! When one of us really does need privacy in the bathroom, the other person has to either go outside or stay in the living room with the door closed.

We took up all the old floorboards and discovered a maze of old pipework and electric cables. There was a huge amount of rubble lying on top of Claire's ceiling between the floor joists. We also found old junk left behind by previous builders, and even a chisel which we believe dates back to Victorian times!
New soundproofing
Disaster! For weeks we had been tiptoeing around the stripped out floor and being really careful to step only on the joists. Just as we were putting the new floorboards back down, I slipped and put my foot through Claire's ceiling! You can see through the hole to Claire's bed directly below.

We had to get an emergency builder to fix the hole, one extra expense that we didn't need. Oh well, it would probably be impossible to get through a DIY project as big as this without having any mishaps!

Wallpaper stripping. Our iron was sacrificed for this task, a small price to pay for getting rid of that awful orange.

...and the joist work continues (April 2007)

Installing the joists in the rear half of the house was more difficult than the front room, because of the stairs and walls in the way.














We had to take out some walls to make room for the joists to go up. We started on the wall between the bedroom and bathroom stairs.










Then we moved on to the wall between the bathroom stairs and lower stairs.







There was no extra help available when installing the rear joists, but luckily our technique had improved by this time, and we managed to get even the heaviest joists into place with just the two of us.




First joist installed, with most of the bedroom wall now gone. Note the old wattle and daub wall construction in the wall between the bedroom and kitchen/living room.


We now have to crouch down to get up and down the bathroom stairs!

The exposed joists do have their uses - very handy for drying clothes...

...and storing clothes! We were really chuffed with this solution, as we no longer had any space for a wardrobe.

Winter highlights - non DIY (Nov 06 - March 07)

In November we had a wonderful weekend with George's family at Skibo Castle, in the far north of Scotland (where Madonna and Guy Ritchie got married), for Matt and Kate's wedding (Matt is George's step-brother). It was just the two of us on Christmas Day, but we were fortunate to have the company of our friends' kittens, who needed looking after during the festive break.

It didn't take long for little George and Jess to feel right at home!

We had two good snowfalls this year, the first at the end of January and the second just after George's birthday at the beginning of February.
Clapham Common
I took George to Bologna, Italy for his birthday present. We discovered an interesting fountain! (Fontana del Nettuno)

As always, food and wine were the highlights of our trip

I went back to New Zealand for three weeks in March. I timed it beautifully, as the summer finally came right in NZ when I arrived. I spent 4 idyllic days in Kaikoura with my grandparents Joan and Jim, and we had lots of picnics like this one.
Eating dirt cheap, freshly caught seafood in the early evening sun on Kaikoura Peninsula
I spent the rest of my time in the Wellington / Wairarapa region, mainly based at my mum's new house in Martinborough. Martinborough turned on the sun (Wellington didn't). Almost every meal was al fresco.
Left to right: Marjan (Dougal's fiance), Edwina (my step-brother Greg's wife), Greg, David (my mum's husband), Dougal (my brother), Rachel (my mum)

Left to right: Dougal, Alastair (my brother), Juliane (Alastair's girlfriend), me, Edwina, Greg, David, Marjan

The project begins (Jan - March 2007)

We plan to change our flat from this...
To this...
We are swapping the bathroom and bedroom around so that the bathroom is on the main floor and the bedroom occupies the whole top floor. The stairs to the top floor are being moved into the centre of the house, creating space for a new external door, which will lead to a new roof terrace at the rear.

The first job was installation of the new joists, required to strengthen the upper floor. The preparation for the joists took many hours, over many weeks. The biggest challenge with an old houses like this is the crookedness of everything! Walls are not completely vertical, floors rise and fall, and there are few right angles anywhere. So we had to create custom-made joists to fit our house - each one of them slightly different from the last. We also had to cut chunks out of the existing sagging joists, in order to fit the new joists underneath and ensure a level floor above.
It took four men to lift the first joist into place (we got better at this later).

More preparation...

...and the next big joist goes up

Meanwhile, our bedroom became ever more crowded to make space in the living room (at least it helped to cover up more of the orange) More timber being delivered - a major operation in itself

The end result: all ten joists were finally installed in the front room by the end of March (we started in January). It was a long, difficult job, and we still had the other half of the house to do!