Step 5:Terrorfication

Maggie tells me that the noun from terrify is terror but I was looking for something stronger!

We basically now have no roof. The foreman tells us that several of the wooden beams are completely rotten - one collapsed when one of the workmen stood on it.

There remains some semblance of order because our suspended ceiling is still in place so we don´t have views of open skies but the house is stripped. Nearly all the furniture gone, piled high in the garage or in the corridor to the utility room. It really is quite terrifying looking at the place - dust and rubble everywhere, the ribs of the house laid bare, cables hanging loose from tattered masonry. It has to be a matter of faith that it will all go back together again and hopefully look even better.

We´ll be camping out in the bunkhouse at the back for the next couple of weeks. We still have access to the kettle though and that´s all we Brits need to sustain us in troubled times. Or that´s what Violet Carson maintained.