Wills, shalls and won’ts

We went to Oban to encourage our slow-motion solicitor towards getting new wills drafted and powers of attorney in place. No time like the present.

As an extension of the preparatory work, I’d been writing a note for my children about my one and only serious (and most fun) guitar, so should they one day come to sell it, they’ll know what they’re dealing with. When I was twenty, my great uncle had unexpectedly given me two hundred pounds. I went straight to ABC Music in Addlestone and bought an as-new, left-handed Fender Telecaster. Great uncle was seriously unimpressed; I said it was an investment. Along with a couple of other bands, my art school outfit (The Ba) was booked to play in Romsey, and Mark, our singer, recalls that the back wall of the local Tesco was daubed with ‘All punks will die on October 8th‘. Because we dressed differently, it suited townies and teddy boys to assume we were punks. In the pub beforehand, a local tried to pick a fight; I said I’d come to play music, not fight. We played through the usual (in those days) rain of spit, but then ashtrays started flying. A bottle exploded on the front of my guitar, chipping the paint and showering me with fine, beery glass shards. We played on, but when furniture flew and I saw a policeman on the floor, we called it a day. It could have ended horribly. We were lucky.

Completion certificate: I emailed Colin, the building standards officer, on Wednesday, asking when he’d be inspecting house and workshop and explaining that, unless I had my building warrant signed off, I was facing the expensive renewal of site insurance, twice the cost of house insurance. He phoned first thing Thursday, listing five or six further supporting documents I needed to submit, several of which need to be displayed somewhere in the house.

He’s coming on Monday, between nine and nine thirty! I feel a mixture of relief as well as trepidation. Getting this far has been a campaign, a bit of a marathon and though I’ve enjoyed nearly all of it, I’m really looking forward to drawing a line, albeit notional, under the house building. Being able to say, “Yup, done that!” and patting myself on the back with my osteo-arthritic hands. The final inspection is a final exam, a viva, an uncomfortable scrutiny of house and workshop, and therefore of me. I’ve had enough and I want to move on.

Bureaucracy then chewed my day into small pieces: chasing a certificate I don’t think was ever issued for the installation and commissioning of the non-vented hot water tank (heat pump and heating system); seeking Form Q for the glazing of the big sliding windows (I feared that the intervening death of the engineer might make this tricky); a D.I.Y. sustainability certificate (from a government website); a smoke spillage test for the woodburning stove(s?). In addition Colin gently pointed out that I’d not renewed the warrant (now one hundred and fifty pounds for three months renewal) and that, in addition to submitting the ‘certificate’ showing I’d bought the varnish to fireproof the exposed OSB in the workshop, I’d not shown the change from plasterboard to treated OSB on my amended plans. So please submit another amendment and another hundred and fifty quid.

Discussing this with Andrew, we agreed to leave any amendment until after Colin’s visit, in case there were other matters to be included. To my pleasant surprise, Andrew had this sorted in less than two hours, printing the sustainability certificate, the smoke spillage certificate and several other bits of paper, and had got hold of the structural engineers, who’d apparently signed off our engineer’s work. They promptly issued Form Q – Glazing.  Their invoice is on its way.

As Saturday was forecast to be almost summery, we drove to Carsaig on the Sound of Jura, with kayaks and camping gear.  It was sunny with a curious haze veiling more distant features, including the Paps, as we paddled south.  Great to be out and making quicker progress than anticipated against a neap tide and minimal breeze.  A few other kayakers were around, lurking in bays or appearing round headlands, going the other way. 

Tash immediately recognised an array of jagged rocky plates, like the fins on the back of a stegosaurus, and knew precisely where we were and, sure enough, the next bay held the beautiful sloping stone jetty, designed by Thomas Telford to land cattle from Jura.  In under three hours and on a falling tide we landed at the last bay and made camp.  There wasn’t enough wood for a fire so we cooked on the Trangia; then, as the breathless evening became midgey, we sat barefooted on a rock down by the sea, sun sinking, cloud colours intensifying, then fading, as the sun set.  Intermittently all evening we heard gentle farting noises from the harbour seals perched on rocks in our bay, but it was impossible to tell which end of the animal produced the sound.  We were excited to hear an opening burst of song from a more distant skerry –  the sad and wild singing of an Atlantic seal, but that was it, there was no follow-up.  We were waiting for the first star, but were too sleepy and the temperature was dropping, my feet were cold, and when we got off the rock the sea felt deliciously warm, though it wasn’t.  It was bedtime.

Sunday came windy and grey, an easterly force four gusting six and, instead of going round into Loch Sween to make a nearly circular journey, we returned up the Sound of Jura, sheltered by the coast and soon, as the tide changes earlier close inshore, helped by the flow.  Despite it being neaps (where low tide is not very low), a dense fringe of kelp tops were exposed, from which we plucked succulent dulse, interrupting our passage several times for this unexpected forage.  It’s now in the multi-stacked dehydrator and draped over the (clothes) drying rack in the workshop.

Monday 2 September: all day the internet has been full of holes, communication intermittent.  Apart from the never-seen certificate for the installation and commissioning of our unvented hot water tank (which the heating engineers are looking into), I have emailed the required papers required to the Council – they should have been uploaded but the system was not well and I was helped by a human being.

Inspection: Colin, the building standards officer arrived. Before nine o’clock (my teeth unbrushed, toast buttered but not eaten). He’d driven from Clydebank and, after coffee and a chat, we began the rounds.  Room by room, Ipad in hand, he compared what he saw to the submitted plans: smoke alarms; surface finishes; plumbing; doorway widths; stair dimensions.  After inside, outside.  The drains, what connects to what.  Where the rainwater goes (a missing water butt, my environmentally sensitive leg pulled but not pulled off). Is the anti-vermin mesh fixed below the larch cladding – he checked in several places.  We visited the firefighting tank and the septic tank, then the workshop.  As we walked through the door he said he was relieved that it no longer felt like a home.  He asked whether there were permanent vents, vents a garage would have to have.  I confessed that there weren’t, but he said it was clearly a workshop, not a garage.

I’m relieved. Assuming the unmarked glazing is actually of the right specification (Andrew’s waiting to hear back from the Variotec factory), we can etch the glass ourselves. My first completion certificate has been refused, but that’s fine. All the supporting documents are retained by the Council and there’s no charge for making a new application. Where’s that last certificate?