The smell of soot and more dead birds

It’s Monday and I am seriously aching from working on the house this weekend and need another weekend to recover!

It didn't help that I was hungover for the duration. The Saturday hangover was the result of a night out with my old Aspect work colleagues, and the Sunday one (luckily this effected Jon as well so he couldn't be smug!) followed a night in Frome with some friends watching the comedian, Jonathan Pie (who is incredible).

As a result, we got to the house late on Sunday (we also couldn't drag ourselves away from the rugby - Wales vs Australia, what an incredible game!), back to the task of removing the chimney stack at the back of the house. We wanted to get rid of this one as it will give us a lot more space in the kitchen and the smaller bedroom, but will keep the one at the front and put in a log burner to make the lounge all cosy.

In order to remove it safely, Jon had to work out exactly where to put the steel joist and the acro props in order to support the floor joists and the section of chimney in the attic, while we take out all the bricks from the lower sections.

Jon bought 5 of the acrow props on Facebook marketplace for £30, which he thought was a bargain. I thought they looked pretty rusty and rubbish, but they seem to have done the job (well, I hope the house is still up when we go back tonight!)

This activity has taken a lot of mental power (Jon), brute strength (Jon again) and removal of many many bricks (Jon and me). I haven’t enjoyed it at all as I have just been paranoid the whole time about the floor collapsing and had panic attacks (complete with fearful tears) every time I heard rubble falling down the chimney into the room below.

In the chimney we found the remains of 2 birds (possibly a Mum and her chick), which had obviously suffered the same fate as the poor jackdaw we found dead in the barn log burner. However these bodies had been there about 40 years longer and had fully decomposed, leaving amazing (although quite disturbing) skeletons, complete with feather shafts.

Taking the chimney down created even more dust than the lath and plaster, which I didn't think was possible. Jon was completely black at the end of each day, but the worst thing was the smell. Soot has got a very distinct (and unpleasant) smell, which lingers. I gave my car a full-on clean on Sunday night (the poor thing is really taking the brunt of this house project), but I can still taste it in the air.