By

Craig Ennew

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Thirty-Three: Old Friends

This week: taking solace in good company

Writing blog posts about building projects – or any aspect of life-change for that matter – is about knowing how much to reveal, and how much to hold back. You want to raise excitements levels towards that ‘big reveal’; but in reality, projects and the very nature of life itself turns out to be more a sequence of modest reveals closely followed by, ‘Meh – so that didn’t really go to plan’.

Laundrettes are where coins go to die

Don’t get me wrong: The Shack is moving forward. The kitchen is in, albeit not fully-functioning yet. It’s a kitchen we stand and look at rather than use. We have a working fridge. Now, we also have a washing machine. You cannot underestimate how essential a washing machine is until you lose it. AI may be writing new songs by The Beatles but, for all I can see, it hasn’t come up with a plan to drag seedy laundrettes beyond the 1970s yet. Laundrettes, I have learned, are where coins go to die.

I have no doubt that Will the Builder and his team are doing a stirling job. Of a morning, they’re arriving in their assortment of vehicles just as my wife shunts The Boy off to school; when we get back after five, they’re scrabbling around with brooms and dustpans, trying to make the place liveable for us. The next morning, it all starts over again.

Work in progress: old window, new kitchen

He hasn’t pushed the point, but we know that Will the Builder has felt The Shack push back every step of the way. It has resisted change. Near the hall, there is an incomplete section of wall through which you can see the original timber of the building before it was clad in brick. Its original self will not go away. If the building had an entrance theme it would be either This is Me or I am What I am.

Building project bingo

Friends and colleagues bombard us with reassurance and, worse still, words of sagacity. A friend, whose nearest experience to anything like ours was getting her front room wallpapered, tells us that we want to have a serious word with our builder. He’s like all of them, she says – dragging his feet and probably juggling another five jobs in and around Dorset. At this point, I want to introduce ‘Building Project Bingo’. These are the phrases you are certain to hear when you bore everyone who will stop to listen with details of your renovation:

  • So when d’you reckon it’ll all be finished by?
  • Are the windows in yet?
  • You’re so brave!
  • Did you realise what you were getting into
  • Just think of the lovey Christmas in your new home!
  • D’you think it’ll be ready by Christmas?
  • It’ll all be worth it in the end!

The last is by far the most frequent and all are a variation on the ubiquitous are we nearly there yet? Part of the problem is living on site. When we were living at the cottage in Worth Matravers, the end of our working week was always marked with a little visit to The Shack in West Lulworth to chart how it had come on over the working week. This would be swiftly followed by an excited de-brief over a couple of pints back at the Square and Compass. When you actually live there day by day, you begin to know the place inside-out: which walls have been plastered; which plug sockets have been installed; on which ledge a pack of screws has been abandoned.

‘Look at the builders’ kettle!’ my wife says to me, on one occasion.

I look to where she’s pointing.  There it sits in its grimy glory, on the floor in the corner of what will hopefully be our dining area.  ‘What about it?’ I say.

‘It hasn’t moved,’ she says, putting down her bag.  ‘It was in exactly the same place first thing this morning.  I don’t think they’ve even been here at all today.’

Gloom and abandonment

You hear tales of builders who suddenly vanish for days – weeks even – on end. Tools are abandoned and a half-eaten Ginsters sausage roll lies, forlorn and forgotten, on a plastic window ledge: a faint but diminishing promise of return. Suddenly, what was an exciting project turns into a still-life frieze of gloom and abandonment.

Our windows were supposed to be delivered and fitted on Wednesday.  Wednesday comes and goes. No delivery, same old blown windows. Thankfully, a lengthy email from Will the Builder brings much to banish doubts.  There has been a slight delay in the window production.  All should be arriving and fitted at the beginning of next week, along with our wooden floor.  From that point, we can start getting some furniture in. 

The morning afters: six (empty) green bottles

We also have people whose very presence is palliative in challenging times. Lovely friends from Salisbury visited us last weekend – the very folk who were the first we told about The Shack (see 1. Funky Little Shack). If they thought we were barking mad having done what we’ve done, they didn’t say so. We played cards, drank a lot of wine and chatted into the night, and they had the good grace to accept our offer of the luxury accommodation of a mattress on the bathroom floor. The next morning, there was one of those moments I’ll not forget. We’re sat on the rickety terrace in the sun. We’ve eaten a good breakfast cooked, as most things are at the moment, on the gas barbecue. The sky is clear of clouds and there’s a fresh breeze that gently teases the cobwebs away. Below us, the trees in the garden sway and before us a line of ragged rooks caw towards the brow of the hill. We’re all quiet for a time, as one of our friends leans back in her chair and closes her eyes, the sun in her face. ‘This is lovely,’ she says. ‘I don’t think I want to leave.’

I’m with her on that one.

©Craig Ennew 2025

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