On the eve of construction

We used to wake up to my alarm but I don't need it anymore. Blundstones down the side path and cheery talk about weather or cricket or where to put the newly arrived timber, get me up well before 7.30 am.

Yes, after two years of planning with J the architect we have finally got to the building stage. We’re adding a room and making a few internal rearrangements. Why did the planning stage take so long? Well, I don’t think J the architect ever had enough the time for a little job like ours. He is very kind and took it on as a favour. 

I’ve known J for a long time. Thirty years ago, he had a tiny Edwardian brick house in North Carlton. A bit like this one, when I think about it. He lived there with his then girlfriend and her two wild boys aged about four and six. His sister M, her partner B and I ran a singing telegram business from his attic.  It was bedlam twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Somewhere in the middle of the unrelenting chaos, he was trying to establish himself as an architect.

There still don’t seem to be enough hours in the day for him. Teenage children of his own now and a large practice to manage. Once, after an on-site early meeting with him, he drove me into town.  I noticed the orange light on his fuel gauge and suggested he might need to fill up. He said we’d be fine. Not only did he know that it was on, but he knew exactly how many kilometres he had left before we conked out.

Anyway, somehow we cajoled the plans out of him and one by one ticked off the required bits of paper work - the building permit, boundary survey, and soil testing. And now we have P the builder on site. He has been in action for two weeks now and is aiming for lock up before Christmas. He’s even here on Saturdays to make sure he gets everything done on time.

P appears to be the ultimate planner. When we signed the contracts, I was impressed that he gave us a prioritised list of places for choosing knobs, tiles, doors etc. Even more impressive, when he realised we intended to get a dog, he sent me off to buy a dog door so he could install it in the yet to be made up sliding door on the new room.  All before he had turned the first sod.

It all seemed logical to me until I got to the pet shop. I was finding it hard to decide on the size we needed. The shop assistant called me lady and said that getting a dog might would be a help.