Erica takes over the world…

…or at least our house.

I’m currently sitting at the dining room table. About six inches from my right arm is a roll of insulation. To my left is a stack of timber, hanging over one piece of which is a solar panel extension cable. Behind that is a box of high temperature spray adhesive. Behind me is my large toolbox. At the other end of the table is Mick’s laptop, next to which is a pile of notebooks, plus multiple loose sheets of paper, mainly bearing sums and sketches of bed designs. Beyond the far end of the table are three cut pieces of insulation board.

Out in the room that might loosely be described as a conservatory there’s half a sheet of insulation board, behind which is Erica’s rear header liner. In the middle of the room is the boxing in made for the nearside wheel arch, standing on top of the surfaces of our two makeshift workbenches.

Fortunately, from here I can’t see all the stuff that’s in the other half of that room, and as there’s so much of it, I won’t subject you to that list.

If I was to walk from here to the living room, I would pass through the hallway, where I would find a piece of Erica’s trim (from next to the driver’s seat) leaning against the wall, under which is a large coil of cable.

Then there’s the living room, which until a few days ago had retained its function as just that. Now it’s exploded into a new role as a store room. Immediately on walking through the door you encounter the base of Erica's sofa (and if not paying attention will walk straight into it, as I’ve learnt). My knitting chair sits in front of that, but my knitting is feeling sorely neglected, and I couldn’t get to that chair at the moment if I wanted. In front of it is the huge box for the second solar panel*. A few inches in front of that is a boxed PortaPotti, next to which, leaning against the coffee table is the sliding-slat sofa-seat/bed base. On the coffee table is the stove/sink.

I’ll describe the utility room with a photo, but with the comment that it has got worse since this was taken.

And all this after the house was so clean and tidy through lockdown! I could, of course, dedicate some time to having a bit of a tidy-up, but many of the items that are lying around are so big that we’re limited for options as to where we can put them, plus it seems a futile endeavour whilst work is on-going. At least at the moment I’ve got a good idea where everything is.

On the one hand, I hope that nobody announces that they’re coming around to see us in the immediate future; on the other hand, I’ve got kilos of freshly picked cooking apples and there’s going to be a lot of apple-based cookery to be shared over the coming weeks.

(*I’m not in the habit of sending back things that I’ve ordered online. Indeed, I can only remember making one return previously, and that was when I carelessly ordered the wrong item. However, I’m not making a good job of choosing a solar panel as having sent the first one back earlier in the week and received a different one, I’m now sending that one back too. Third time lucky, I hope.)