ARGGGGHHHH!

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you are all have a good week so far. I'm just writing to let you know that I may be MIA for a while. We had the gas engineer come today to inspect the boiler and our gas cooker and to be honest I was half expecting him to condemn our cooker which is rather old and has developed a few small holes in it's base inside the oven (so convinced was I that this would happen, I went and ordered a mini oven from Aldi so if the worst came to the worst, I'd still be able to make some kind of Christmas dinner in a few months time!) however what I wasn't expecting was for the boiler to be condemned in it's place. In it's self that's not a bad thing in fact it'll be great to actually have boiling water without having to waste 20 litres of water before it even gets warm and if the boiler had to be replaced now while the weather is still relatively warm is a good time to do it but unfortunately the boiler isn't the only thing that's going to be replaced, the entire heating system is going to be. That means every radiator in the flat has to be easily accessible and an asbestos survey has to be carried out prior to that. That probably doesn't sound like a big deal but we have a heck of a lot of stuff in a fairly smallish flat with very little storage - in fact the one room that does have the storage space is the utility room where the boiler is located. I have two days to get all the radiators accessible ( at present there's the one in the bathroom free and that's it - even the hall one has the laundry bin in front of it!). The kitchen's not too bad, all I've got to do is move the table from one side of the room to the other (and clear any crap that's hidden itself underneath there - not literal crap, I'm not that BAD a housewife!!), the hallway stuff can go in the bath for now but the two biggest challenges are the two bedrooms. My side of the bed is currently covered with the contents of the airing cupboard which I'll transfer to the sofa for now, but the radiator is under the window at Chris's side and that's going to involve some serious furniture humping and trying to figure out where it can all go (on the communal landing is one option - our next door neighbours certainly have enough stuff out there!) but the worst room is going to be the second bedroom, my craftroom AKA The Crudy! I've been crafting for many years and I'm a craft hoarder - I have a heck of a lot of stuff and it's all crammed into a space barely big enough to fit a single bed and a set of drawers in. I have stuff in boxes stacked on top of other boxes and I really don't know where I'm going to put it all and still leave the radiators exposed. So instead of spending my birthday crafting, watching DVDs and having a home pamper session like I'd planned, I will be running myself ragged more than likely with not even a nice birthday meal or even cake to look forward to.

The asbestos survey is on Friday between 9am and 11am (originally they wanted to do it TOMORROW!!!) and the gas fitters are also coming to measure up the radiators etc at some point on Friday too. I'm not sure how long everything is going to take (if they find asbestos we may have to move out for a bit - I'm praying hard that they don't!) and even once the work's been completed there's all the aftermath to take care of, we might need to re-decorate some rooms depending on how much damage is caused by them replacing the radiators and pipes which will mean even more delays. It's not really practical to try crafting with my supplies scattered to the four corners of the flat so I'm not sure when I'll be making stuff again. It's a real possibility that I won't be able to take part in this month's challenge but I will blog Michele's makes if she's agreeable.

I hope you'll stick with me and keep visiting my blog for any updates. Not sure when I'll blog next but until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx