Esther Chilton

Last week, I started a new series – the story of my loft conversion. I kept a diary at the time to record the events. Did it warrant a diary? Could it really be described as a series of events? Oh yes, it certainly could!

If you missed day one, click here.

Day Two

The first half of the day was spent consoling my daughter. She was devastated that the ‘smiley men’ would not be back to put up more scaffolding. “More poles, Mummy! More poles! I like poles!” Personally, I was thankful they weren’t coming back. I didn’t think my toilet could cope with round two.

At lunchtime, a different smiley man turned up, whistling away. Have I ever told you I hate whistling? Perhaps I was a dog in a previous life, with super sensitive hearing. To me, it sounds like nails being scraped down a blackboard. Or perhaps I’m just a miserable old cow.

Anyway, said smiley man had a load of materials in his van and wanted to put them somewhere. He asked if it would be okay to put them in the garage. I said it was rather full, so the driveway would probably be best. We’d already had this dicussion with head office, who said the drive was fine, but no, smiley man knew better.

I opened the garage door and smiley man – who was no longer smiling – thought he could find some room. But my garage thought otherwise and when the mountain of junk stored in the loft part started to cascade down like a waterfall, he swiftly changed his mind and agreed the driveway would do.

When I went inside, having ‘got rid’ of smiley man who now sported more of a grimace, my daughter piped up, “Have they finished, Mummy?”

“No, darling,” I said through gritted teeth. “Tomorrow is the big day.”

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