Here in Blighty it’s a Bank Holiday weekend, so naturally the weather’s dull and cold. To be fair, it was reasonably sunny yesterday, but that doesn’t count because Paula and I were at the house doing DIY rather than enjoying ourselves.

The plasterer is due to come this Thursday and Friday, so hopefully the house will look a lot better afterwards. I can’t wait to be honest: it seems like we’ve been looking at concrete blockwork, electrical conduit and bare plasterboard for months, so it’ll be great when it’s all covered over and we can start to think about decorating.

I went back to the house on my own this afternoon because I wanted to remove the old windowsills: they’re covered in so many layers of paint it seemed easier to replace them with new boards. Not one of my better ideas. I started with the guest bedroom’s windowsill, which for some bizarre reason had been painted dark green by the previous owners. It was wedged (and nailed) in pretty tight, and proved quite difficult to lever out with the bolster chisel and crowbar. Eventually it succumbed, but I damaged the surrounding plasterwork more than I intended to. So sod it, the other windowsills are staying put…