Lesley gets out her credit card

Posted: 17th October 2007 10:45

'Our joint current account looks like the financial equivalent of a yo-yo dieter...'

Welcome to 'The House That Bled Money'. All I need to set the scene would be a few thunder claps and Vincent Price to intone those words in a scary, hollow voice with a mad cackle at the end.

We've reached one of those hair-raising stages in the house-build schedule where a whole legion of deposits have to be paid so that events can move on. It's making our joint current account look like the financial equivalent of a yo-yo dieter – fat and full of cash one minute, then the next minute thin, frail and in need of a lie-down after one or two mammoth cheques have been written.

In the past week or so we've paid out deposits for the kitchen (gulp), the underfloor heating (gasp) and the windows (cringe). Plasterboard is being put up on the ceilings and Darren-the-builder is now muttering about needing the linings for all the doorways in the house. Having thought that these were included in the quotes we got from various carpentry companies, we then looked back through the files to find that they weren't – so that's another £1,000 or so of outlay that we weren't expecting. It's like Halloween has come early, but inevitably there seem to be more tricks than treats.

Husband has been pursuing the company that fitted the ventilation system because there are a few things that need correcting and suddenly they've gone all silent and elusive on him. It's strange how they couldn't wait to pick up the phone and talk to us before we parted with our money but, now, when the money is in their account and there are a few things that need tidying up, they've become inexplicably unavailable.

In fact, I'm amazed and delighted to have come this far without anything major going wrong. A few dodgily-fitted ventilation tubes is not the end of the world. Obviously, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the great God of Building Projects isn't reading this and thinking that it's high time he sent some really hideous house-related disaster to ward off any misplaced feelings of security.

In other parts of the house, the veranda roof is in the throes of being tiled and it looks very elegant, while the roof lantern is being given coats of preservative and varnish in advance of its fitting and glazing. Back at the cottage, the chimney has been swept, jackdaw nests removed and Husband, rather like early man, has discovered fire and is now constantly chopping wood. If this were a Carry On film script, I'd be able to go on at great length about how many times he gets his chopper out in one day. To be fair to the hunter-gatherer, I'm also looking forward to the evenings getting darker and colder so that we can fling a few logs on the stove and waft about smelling of wood smoke for the duration of the winter.

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