Just to be on the safe side

I went to the tile shop this afternoon after Tivoli had left to double check everything, rather than order my tiles online.

Well...

The wet-room tiles Tivoli has done a layout for (replacing the one she did for tiles I thought were wet-room quality but weren't) have been discontinued. The salesperson was extremely patient while I took this information in. 

He could amass enough tiles from different branches around the country but strongly discouraged this as they'd be different firing batches (so slightly different colours and even, to my surprise, slightly different sizes - the tiles on the left of my photo are the same style from different batches) and they couldn't all arrive in time for the tiler to start work in eight days' time. 

I stood and tried to think. 

Between us we must have gone through a dozen workaround ideas which were either unfeasible (mine) or too expensive (his). There are very few wet-room quality tiles available and the solution in the end was for me to accept the generous discount he offered me on some wet-room tiles that will do, buy them only for the floor and come up with another solution for the walls. They aren't available in the Oxford shop but he earmarked the ones in Didcot for me and I need to arrange transport to go and collect them. 

I need five 2.5 metre lengths of trim. I found a reasonable match that was cheaper than my original choice, bought four and the salesperson ordered the fifth from Didcot.

The first bus refused to let me on with my 2.5 metre lengths of metal but the driver on the next bus was kinder as long as I stashed my weapons safely under the bus seats. I got off near the house to drop them off. 

The rendering is finished. The staircase needs finishing but is uncovered and usable so I was able to go up to the bathroom and stare at the MVHR ducting that is giving me boxing-in grief. I think there is a better solution than the one the architect has come up with.

I asked my lovely next-door neighbour who works the other side of Didcot whether I might be able to meet him in Didcot on his drive home one evening this week and cadge a lift for 100kg of tiles. Yes, of course I could. Tomorrow.

There are some very kind people helping me with all this.