A lost Saturday morning

At some point late last week, a boy appeared at the door, offering The Builder blandishments to buy new windows for the house. He waved the seduction of a government grant for old folks to have double glazed windows installed, and The Builder arranged for someone to come around on Saturday morning to measure up and offer a quote.

The government grant seemed a bit dubious to me – normally these things are arranged through the relevant government department or, more usually, through the local council. Still – we had been talking about replacing at least some of the windows for some time. And what could be lost buy allowing someone to give us a guide price for the work?

What could be lost? Pretty much the whole of the middle bit of Saturday, that’s what!

A deeply slimy man appeared at the door on Saturday morning. He made me very suspicious. And Marlo didn’t like him at all! And he spent at least two hours telling me very much more than I ever, ever wanted to know about PVC, windows, window frames and many other things plastic window related. I’m not quite sure why we actually sat through it all! He offered a ridiculously high quote, which he then scaled down to include the “government discount for old folks”. Still ridiculously high. He then spoke to his boss and offered a price which made quite a lot more sense (this, apparently, is a common sales tactic by this firm).

It was beginning to appear that the only way to get rid of Sleazy Simon was going to be to kill him – or to sign his contract! Signing the contract seemed the less expensive and time consuming way to go, especially since you have a seven day cooling off period during which you can cancel the contract with no penalty – and we were thinking about replacing the windows anyway.

But even that didn’t get rid of him. It took a further hour before all his paperwork was completed to his satisfaction and he finally slithered away. All up – four hours. Four whole hours.About 6 windows :-(

We had to go to The Nettle for a very late lunch to recover!!!!!

We spent the rest of the weekend thinking about whether to go ahead, and have now decided that we will. It wasn’t a bad price to have 6 windows replaced, and it probably means that we need never think about windows again. Ever.Which is fine by me! Someone is coming tomorrow to do a proper measurement of the windows and the new windows should come in a couple of weeks.

We woke up on Sunday morning to find around 7-8 centimetres of snow outside. This came as something of a surprise. It is true that snow had been forecast overnight – but I hadn’t realised it would be quite so much. But the day was actually quite mild and it didn’t hang around for long on the roads and pavements. There’s still quite a bit in the garden, though. By lunchtime the roads were clear enough for us to go out, so we headed to a deserted Chatsworth Farm Shop (bereft of customers, staff and the fish counter!), and to an equally deserted garden centre. Otherwise we pottered around at home and gently ambled through the later afternoon and evening.

And I must remember to email Farmer Jayne and tell her how succulent the roast pork was last night. And how very delicious her low salt sausages are.

My new Mac laptop is on its way. Waiting excitedly for it to arrive. Much more exciting than new windows, nice though it will be to have double glazed windows which neither leak nor steam up in between the glazings!!