Corner of horrors

Just so you don't feel you're missing out on the experience of doing up the MBH, and also so you don't think the heat is all I have to complain about, here's the corner of the house we were mostly tackling today. In this corner (which was optimistically going to be a wine room, but I suspect will just be a cupboard) we have to build a framework for our fusebox to sit on, and for all the cabling to go upstairs (through the hole you see at the top - created by Mr B in about a minute, so rotten is the wood).

The pipes and electrical wires you can see going off to the right actually go into another property - so that all has to be cut and sealed properly. Today, we had to cut through the lead pipe (the white one). It would have taken a bit of time with an angle grinder... but ours is broken so it took a very very very long time with a hacksaw. There was much frustration with drills today. Our best drill is, for reasons that seemed logical at the time I'm sure, still in Scotland. Drills here that are any good seem to cost six times what they do in the UK. Grrrr.

Anyway, here is the corner with most of the bizarre plant, animal and fungal life removed. I'm sure we have probably wiped out a couple of unique species today, and I still have a very large slug to deal with in the music room...

There, don't you feel sorry for us now? Or do you just think we're a little bit mad...