Three days of Hell: the builders have returned!

It's actually five days of hell, not three. I was amazed that they finally arrived on Monday morning-after eight months of constant complaining. You see: when you find the organ grinder, you get results. Eventually.

When Mulalley's manager investigated my complaint-two months ago?- he told me that they would send someone to fix the mess that the workmen had made in March. I really didn't believe that anything would be done. I thought that Mulalley would just ignore the total disaster of a kitchen they left in April. Not so.

About three weeks ago, two men from Mulalley showed up to investigate (again)-and they did not like what they saw. So we made the appointment for Monday (this week). And the two guys couldn't have been nicer. Derek worked all day Monday without a break-and I mean, no break at all. From 8:15 until nearly 4:30 he was banging and crashing and sawing and hammering. I was glad I covered the computer.The level of dust everywhere was amazing. I will be cleaning until Easter. Probably Easter 2016.

I cleared the schedule for all this week-good thing I did-because it seems that the first team made a right mess of this job. Things were done badly, other things were ignored-and, of course, I was unable to open a cabinet because my washing machine was in the way. So poor Derek had some job trying to put right the total disaster that was my kitchen. He worked hard on Monday and Tuesday, and another two people came in on Wednesday to paint, and do some other work, and clean up. I cleaned after they left-and I thought the kitchen looked so much better. I was glad I just made myself a total pain in the ass until I got what I wanted.
And what I wanted was a decent job; why do something if you aren't going to do it right? Oh, yes-this is Britain. I keep forgetting. A half-assed job is far better than no job at all. Allegedly.

Yesterday morning I had a visit from the site manager and a senior Mulalley manager. I assumed they were going to sign off on the job, and that nothing else would need to be done (except the AEG repairman to fix the washing machine that the dummies dropped in March. Twice.) But no, Tony started looking around and was quite upset at the finished work, which he found to be substandard. Hey, what do I know? Everything works, at least they didn't break anything else. But no, Tony came back with John, another senior manager (Mulalley seems to have dozens of senior managers, very few of whom have any idea what they're doing).

Nope. In the afternoon, Tony had his clipboard and John had his wad of Post-its. I love Post-its, by the way (I really need to get out more). Whoever thought up that clever idea must have made millions and millions of dollars. Excellent. I have Post-its everywhere: must do this, must remember to do that, must remember to occasionally glance at the Post-its so I remember what I'm supposed to have done. By November. 2014.

They stopped the list at 31 items that they wanted changed, 31 things that just didn't meet their standards. So today everything that was in the kitchen is still sitting in my living room, I still need to climb over piles of stuff to get anywhere (I call it physiotherapy. Actually, it's a pain in the butt), there is builders' dust everywhere, especially in my lungs. I'm coughing up builders dust. And poor Derek has returned to fix-once again-the mess that was made by someone else. Add to that the fact that he won't be finished today, so we do the whole performance again on Monday. I told Tony that they have to finish by Monday at 4pm.

This will be an interesting weekend, spent climbing over stuff and doing laundry to try to get rid of builders dirt. But when they are finally finished, I will have a working kitchen, and it will look quite good, considering that (according to the senior manager who was here this morning) the budget for the entire kitchen was £300 (roughly five hundred dollars). Huh. No comment. I will do my best not to slam any doors, just in case a cabinet falls off the wall.

I realized this morning that I have spent an inordinate amount of time fighting. I fought for justice after gentamicin poisoning (and we all know how well that turned out, don't we?), I fought hard to regain as much balance as I could, given that I had to rely on my brain making those neural pathways, it takes time, and I have no patience whatsoever. I fought numerous chest infections, a recurrence of pseudomonas, and, of course, let's not forget breast cancer (although I would like to, I have the reminder every time I look in the mirror). I had to fight that, too. I am just a fighter. I'm tired of fighting, quite honestly, and friends (and doctors, and nurses, and physiotherapists) keep telling me how strong and brave I am-and that is probably true, I just refuse to quit. But every once in awhile...I'm tempted to simply give up. Just stop all the medication, and the infusions, and the antibiotics-just quit.

I keep reminding myself that if I quit, all the fighting to survive would have been for nothing. I wouldn't last six months, and all the determination, and the angst, and the fear, and the anger that drove me forward-all that would have been for nothing. So I will do what I do when I get into one of these moods: do my laundry and clean my kitchen. And tomorrow I will feel better, and I will take myself to the museum- and, if I should be hit by a bus or struck by lightning, at least I will  have a clean kitchen!!