Building Sight

The cheeky, albeit slightly murky and obscured, grin of a Henry demonstrates that there's something going on in Swanvale Halt rectory. I know it isn't strictly a Henry, to judge by its name, but apart from that it looks exactly like one. What's happening is that the loft is being lagged with insulation, and there are a variety of other works the Diocese has decreed should be done. Rather the most dramatic is that the plasterboard along one wall in the Green Bedroom has become detached from the wall itself and needs to be replaced or it may, apparently, fall at any minute. That was where Ms Formerly Aldgate used to sleep. 

But there are other tasks on the list, such as the fixing of the garage roof - for 'garage', understand 'former stable' - and the relaying of the hip-tiles along its corner. A few weeks ago one of those fellows who come door-to-door offering gardening and small building services visited me and pointed out these were loose. So they were, and as they hover over a patch of ground outside the Rectory (and not part of its property) where people tend to park their cars I hastily arranged a little sign to warn folk that this might not be advisable for a while. Now some time before this, one of my colleagues (a former lawyer so you would assume he knew what he was talking about) maintained at Deanery Chapter that the Diocese were abandoning responsibility for anything at parsonages that wasn't physically attached to the parsonage house itself, so I assumed that repairing these tiles was my job, and asked a local builder to do it. In the manner of these things, they haven't even been to look at it yet, so I've relieved them of the responsibility in return for £10 put into the tea fund to recognise the admin they've already done. I do hope I won't have to reverse that instruction yet again.