Everything but the kitchen sink

I'm all for recycling and it's pretty clear the construction team has a similar vision. Or did they pile all the building rubble into the garage floor before covering with concrete because it was easier than shipping it off site? Either way, it means less concrete - the floor slab will still be 15 cm thick - and less for lining the pockets of the Chancellor through Landfill Tax. Sorry Gordon, I'm sure you'll find some way of plugging that deficit in some other way! How about some onerous tweaks to IHT? Ooops! Someone else has already thought of that.

Talking about kitchen sinks, the shiny new one from IKEA (at a quarter of the cost compared to that quoted by the kitchen supplier)hasn't yet been fitted, but many of the other units have already been screwed to the wall. The kitchen fitter, who seems to work 12 hour days, seven days a week, is probably the most dedicated tradesman we've come across to date. In a matter of one day, he's single-handedly fitted all floor-standing units to the rear, as well as nearly all the wall units. That's a pretty solid performance. He's warned us the remaining work isn't going to progress at the same speed, but it's impressive irrespective of how long the remaining work will take.

Work on the new site comes to a stand-still until Thursday, while the builders await delivery of the steel frame. It's a critical component of the structure and it's impossible to do anything more to the concrete garage floor or lower ground floor walls until the kit is in place. Like a Meccano kit on steroids, we hope the stuff will fit...