Beautiful parquet flooring throughout

Hmmm.  Not so much.

I seem to be doing all the jobs I've been putting off just now.  Today I got stuck in with wrecking bar, hammer, pliers and about 20 kg of sand to level the dining room floor.  It's not done, by any means, but it's a lot better than it was!  The floor is built, as I suppose was the way back then, on dirt, with a layer of bitumen protecting the back of the wood, hence the amount of mess here.  Over the years burrowing creatures have created a network of tunnels underneath, resulting in lots of peaks and troughs, as though the floor was an undulating wave of wood (with lots of bits therefore to stubb your toes on).  I have tried to fill the burrows with a mix of small rocks and sand - so as not to just give the wee fellas a lovely new sandpit to play in.  We shall see how long it lasts.

At some point some toerag decided it would be a really good idea to lift part of the floor and pour concrete (and plaster and an odd mix of red quarry tiles and cement) in.  And there went my afternoon, with goggles donned and hammer flying hacking it all out.  More recently, Mr B had a hissy fit with the wobbliness of the floor and attacked it with a nail gun.  Man those nails are hard to get out...

I also had a little go at the dodgy bit that makes Mr B's piano stool wobble.  Obviously that is right underneath the piano (too heavy to move) so not really a place to be wielding a wrecking bar with gay abandon (or any other kind of abandon you care to mention).  But it is now a little better than it was.

When I get stuck into a job like this I tend to blank out the world around me (particularly as today I was on a radio ban until I'd seen the GBBO final) until something - the telephone generally - drags me back.  Today it was a bit of concrete flying out and pinging off a guitar string (A, I think) that reminded me that I was in fact in the house, rather than a quarry, and should be a little more careful with the flailing hammer.

Also, those wrecking bars are really sharp.  No-one told me that.  I'm just hoping that my recollection of when my last tetanus jab was is correct...  Today, briefly, I thought with fondness of standing in a dining room in Edinburgh about 12 years ago saying to Mr B "You're right - stripping woodchip really is the worst DIY job ever".  Oh happy days.

So, Bake Off is finally over for another year.  And I managed to avoid seeing the result before I watched it and even remembered which blippers to avoid today for their spoiler tendencies (Meancoast, hang your head in shame!)  This weekend I will mostly be baking iced buns.  Yum.