The forecast for the Sunday was for torrential rain all day - typical. Baggy was left at the house with Pepper, as Calum and his willing helpers headed off back to the holiday cottage to empty the shed. The Domestic Goddess made Baggy a cup of tea, and Hormonal Hannah sat in the 'waiting room', as Baggy drank it, feeling very down. It occurred to Clever Bird that perhaps she should check out the art of feng shui, as she looked at the blocked door, and felt extremely trapped.
She realised that in the same way that the white walls had made Hannah feel uncomfortable, so did the over-crowded rooms. Creative Clara put on her thinking-hat and came up with a plan. It meant moving pretty much all of the furniture once again, but still. That also meant that Hannah would have to be patient, and wait for some male-muscles to be available, so in the meantime, she attempted to start unpacking some of the boxes.
Calum and the guys arrived back from the cottage, with the contents of the shed, at around six in the evening - just as the heavens, (which had been obligingly quiet all day), decided to empty. By the time Baggy realised just how hard it was raining, The Domestic Goddess's line full of washed sheets, towels and covers from the three beds at the holiday cottage, was totally soaked. Baggy, who could hardly move, she was so stiff from lifting and packing, decided to try to help unload. But as Pepper Pooch followed his Furry Mama every time she went back out into the rain, this plan was short-lived. As he jumped on his dad, and got under everyone's feet, Clever Bird took the pooch back inside, before he caused an accident. But guilt took over, and Baggy went back out to help, leaving Pepper indoors. The guys carried things inside; dumped things in the garage; filled the shed to capacity; stuffed the garage to overflowing; even packed the greenhouse full as Hannah tried not to despair.
Baggy was not dressed for outdoors - let alone, outdoors in the rain, and was soon soaked through, but tried to help where she could. Furry Mama registered that Pepper was doing a weird bark; one that she didn't recognise the meaning of. Deciding that he must just be stressed, she left him to it. In the end though, when her pony tail was causing a river to pour down her back, Clever Bird decided that she should really go and get a coat for Baggy.
The Domestic Goddess decided to make tea for the workers. As she walked over to switch the kettle on, she noticed a weird smell. It took a moment for her to notice that a plastic crate, full of kitchen cutlery and other bits, was sitting, rapidly melting, on top of the electric hob. Clever Bird grabbed the crate, only to realise that a) it was incredibly heavy and b) that it was already dripping melted-plastic all over the floor. Freda Fretter screamed out for help, as she couldn't hold the melting crate, and reach over to turn off the electric ring at the same time, but no one heard her. The stinking-smoke that was starting to hit Baggy's lungs made her gasp! Furry Mama suddenly understood what the pooch had been trying to tell her, at the same instant that it occurred to Freda Fretter that the poisonous, plastic fumes could kill her beloved dog. In a panic, she swung the crate off the electric, and half the contents fell out, so she dropped the whole crate, just as Calum appeared. An admittedly marginally hysterical Furry Mama, started shouting at the pooch to come out - through the smoke - like that was going to happen! The more Baggy yelled, the more scared the pooch became. Calum tried to get Baggy to calm down, but she simply couldn't. In the end, Furry Mama grabbed Pepper and carried him out into the pouring rain, where they sat getting soaked, while Hannah attempted to recover from the shock.
Later, as she inspected the damage, Freda noticed that what Creative Clara had thought was a woollen rug, clearly was not! The red-hot knives that fell from the crate, had left their mark!
But Baggy is extremely grateful that that was the only damage done. It could have been so much worse. It doesn't bear thinking about actually! From now on, Furry Mama will pay a lot more attention to how the pooch is barking! Five days on, the smell still hangs around. There is one mystery though; Clever Bird doesn't understand why the smoke detector didn't activate. It is working. Baggy knows this, because it went off today, when The Goddess over-cooked Baggy's lunchtime fish fingers. Maybe poisonous plastic-smoke, doesn't count as smoke! Freda will be throwing away the rug, just in case - although currently, it is still covered in the detritus.
There simply isn't enough room in the house for everything, so Baggy will be contacting a local charity to take away a fair bit of the furniture that she inherited with the house. It's too nice to dump, and deserves to be loved by someone new, but she has to do something to make some space, or Hormonal Hannah will slip into an angst-ridden depression, and Baggy really wishes to avoid that. It's like those sliding puzzles in a square Baggees. You know the ones? You slide the small squares around into the one space, until you have completed the picture. The Domestic Goddess needs that space!!
But there are worse problems to have! And Baggy is delighted that at some point in the next few weeks, once again, she will have a house that she can love. And that she can spend some money on to get the much-needed repairs to its structure done. In fact the scaffolding has gone up today!
It is getting better inside as well - Hormonal Hannah loves her little annexe to the bedroom now it has one of the over-sized sofas in it.
And, the furniture from the old house is now in the sitting room, as it wouldn't squash into the snug.
The sofa (which was in the sitting room), is in the snug.
Yep Baggees, you can't really get to it for cushions and pictures, but still, you should have seen it a week ago! Creative Clara has spent most of this week, hanging, moving and re-hanging pictures. Baggy has been getting quite the workout. But she has to get on with it, as on Monday, the thirty-plus-year-old radiators are being replaced, as most of them no longer work. Trouble is, at present it is impossible to get to four of them, so Baggy needs to keep the gang at it.
Meanwhile, probably from stress, the pooch has had an ear infection, and has been having steroid drops for the last week. Furry Mama was told not to take him in the sea, but Clever Bird decided to ignore this instruction and take him to the beach, as both he and Hormonal Hannah were getting quite down. He also had cuts in his 'armpits'; probably from the car harness, the poor little sausage, but the salt water seemed to help. All because he has so many allergies - it breaks Furry Mama's heart. But she's found a lady that hand-bakes treats for him, from the short list of things that he's not allergic to, and he loves them!
As he is the one who keeps Hormonal Hannah on an even-keel when Calum is away all week, Furry Mama thinks that Pepper deserves them. And frankly, with the chaos that is about to hit the Baggy household from tomorrow, when the workers turn up to start repairing the stonework of the house, that will (hopefully) get rid of the persistent damp, Baggy might be pinching a few from him for herself....
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