(one and a half hours) after...

Must admit though, I thought we'd gone too far there for a minute. It looked as if we were going to keep knocking away rows of bricks and not find the arch. But there it was, with a worrying looking load of loose masonry balanced above it.

The fireplace in the front room was also introduced to a 'sledge' and an angle-grinder. We found a lovely tiled hearth hiding underneath the reinforced concrete one.

This week has been an interesting insight into the world of skip hire. Skips are measured in yards, which for those of us used to SI units makes it a bit of a lottery as to how big it will actually be when it turns up. Then you are expected to pay the driver on delivery (cash or cheque) so optimistically offering a credit card prompts a phone call to the office to see if they'll let me pay on collection. Well the guy in the office isn't so keen on this idea because apparently I'd told him I was down from Leeds for the weekend to clear out this house and so I'd probably be half way back up the M1 when they come round on Monday.

Ours was 6 yards, and it's full. A '6 yarder' is your general purpose builder's skip. Mostly ours was full of the various strata of flooring laid down over the years. When the carpet upstairs came up there was a choking cloud of black dust. Turns out that the old lino which it was resting on contains linseed oil, and the rubber backing of the carpet slowly oxidises on contact. That one didn't come up in my chemistry exam.

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