Angie the Bricklayer

Our lounge used to be such a relaxing place - somewhere to unwind and watch a DVD, read a book or close ones eyes and absorb Rachmaninoff. Now it's a building site. 

Last Tuesday, with a lot of help from Danny the gas fitter, we disconnected and removed the gas fire, along with its vintage back boiler, and today I set about bricking up the old fireplace aperture.  Many a long year has passed since I last attempted anything like this and my current efforts would doubtless reduce a professional brickie to tears, but it's done and I'm actually rather proud of it. 

What you can't see in the photo is another enormous hole on the left side of the chimney breast, where the old heating pipes once ran.  I plan to cover that over with plasterboard, then comes some more cementing to face those bricks, and finally the plastering.  I'm not relishing that last job and may enlist the services of a plasterer, though fellow blogger Shirley Anne has given me lots of advice on how to proceed.  And if I don't quite get it right, it hopefully won't show beneath the wallpaper. 

Make what you will of the bricklayer's almost-colour-coordinated attire.  I'm unrepentant, but promise not to appear like this in public! Skirt, t-shirt and cardie were retired from active service several years ago and are kept for jobs such as this.

Abnormal Result - an update
A heartfelt 'thank you' to Jan, Laura, Lucie, Mel, Sarah, Aunt Sarah and Shirley Anne for their emails and messages of support, following my last blog post.  I attended a consultation at Gloucester Royal Hospital yesterday, where I had all the gory details explained to me.  Undeterred, I signed the consent form and was given a supply of super-effective laxative that will clean out my bowel. The colonoscopy is booked for Friday 21st February and I will know the result on the day.