Farthing chewy

Magda Olivero died today. She was an Italian opera singer who started her career at the age of 22, singing in opera houses all over the world. While her stage career ended when she turned 71, she was still recording arias well into her 80’s. She was 104. She had an amazing career and a wonderful voice.

Equally wonderful is the fact that the plumbers finished today…almost. They will be making a couple of short visits to slowly increase the central heating setting, but, basically (and ignoring any problems that may occur) that’s it.

Today they replaced the radiator in the hall. This meant pulling up some of the floor in the front room (note that we’re now calling it the front room to differentiate between the lounge zone in the extension and the old lounge room – this will end when it has a permanent use) and redirecting the old pipes. The main line now comes down inside the coat cupboard. This operation called for some noisy work to the extent that they both needed ear protectors and I went outside.

They also put in a stink pipe (something Mirinda had never heard of though all houses have them and there’s even a blog about the ones in London here) and set up the underfloor heating in the extension.

Dave the Builder also turned up and we had a long and fruitful site meeting. We’ve made a list of outstanding work and we went through it, item by item. Dave agrees that it’s all very close now.

Late in the day, Robbie and another chap whose name I don’t know (Mr No Name) removed a lot of the sand from the planters and replaced it with topsoil.

Now they’re ready for some serious plant insertion. I said to Mirinda that I wasn’t too sure about the water feature being so straight (everyone knows how much I dislike the orderly) but she reckons a few shrubs will soften the lines. She’s probably right. I’ll reserve final judgement for a bit.

Mr No Name, who visited the site ages ago, was very impressed with it now it’s nearly finished. Though, his first comment was “A new puppy! How cute is she?” Then he patted Day-z. Then he said hello to me. It’s great that the majority of our workers love dogs. I think that’s why I like them so much. That and the job they’ve done, of course.

After the workers had left, I went upstairs to try and rearrange the bedrooms to a more usable state when a sudden crash brought me to a halt. It sounded like the extension had collapsed.

Leaving Emma crying at the top of the stairs (she can sometimes get up but not down them) I (slowly and carefully) raced downstairs to find everything perfectly fine. The front room, however, was another matter. An uninvited guest was frantically trying to leave by the front window.

I have no idea whether it was the same one as yesterday, but a collared dove was flapping around the room, occasionally hitting the windows. As I watched, wondering what my next move should be, it landed on the arm of one of the small windows. I decided I had to open the window.

In order to pull up the floor boards, the plumbers had moved everything to one end of the room, the end with the windows. This means it’s very difficult to get to them, particularly without disturbing the already panicky pigeon. I shut the door and went out the front.

I managed to open the top and two sides windows without bothering it too much although it did fly off the handle (literally) when I jiggled it. The window cleaner did such a good job yesterday that it was impossible to see much in the room apart from my reflection. I went back inside and opened the front room door, quickly slipping in before closing it again.

The silly bird was perched on the end of the curtain rail, looking at me pleadingly. I frantically searched for something to wave at it and suddenly realised my arms would do. I waved at it with all the enthusiasm of a child on a steam train.

It was almost as if the pigeon understood. It fly straight out the open top window and off into the blue of the afternoon.

Later, when I related the incident to Mirinda, we figured it must have just decided to wander into the extension, walk up the hall and pop into the front room. Very odd behaviour, even for a collared dove. Unless it was the one from yesterday and it wanted to see what else was in the house, given the extension was so fabulous. I can understand it’s distress when confronted with the ghastly mess in the front room.

Meanwhile, Emma had cried all the way through the rescue and Day-z just wandered around, completely ignorant of the drama. I went and grabbed Emma and made a cup of coffee. It was then that I noticed the underfloor heating. Well, to be honest, my feet noticed it.

After showing me how to use the thermostat control, Matt the Plumber had left it on 22 degrees all day and, as the day had cooled (it was quite warm) the temperature inside had risen to meet it. The floor tiles were deliciously warm; a delight underfoot. The rest of the evening was spent wandering around the room for no reason, just to feel them.

And it wasn’t just the tiles. The entire extension didn’t take long to warm up and become cosy. A bit too cosy to be fair. I ended up putting the temperature down to a more Gary friendly 18 degrees. It bodes well for a very comfortable Christmas.

And, just to dispel any doubt that I read the comments…here’s some photos of the dogs.

Whenever a dog barks (apart from Day-z) Emma will run either into a corner of the kitchen or onto one of my feet. This is, generally, the sight I see.

While I was working away at the water feature today, Emma decided I needed a bit of twig to help me. It was a generous thought but entirely useless as a work tool.

As sweet as she is, I’m sure she’s not as sweet as a farthing chewy…

While Skyping with mum and dad this morning, dad started down Memory Lane, as he is wont to do. He mentioned ‘farthing chewy’. I was intrigued. Something you could buy for a quarter of a penny? Subsequently, I found this:

“The farthing is most probably as mysterious to the modern generation as the groat was to mine. The farthing had a robin on one side and when our school tuck shop was open for business bought one fruit salad, a chewy sort of sweet.” John Barber

And then, this:

And so we split that coin into two other units, the halfpenny or ha’penny, and then again into two more units, the farthing, a farthing being next to useless for buying anything of any sort of intrinsic value other than a small chewy sweet known as “a chew”, four -a-penny, fruit salad or blackjack, the only thing in the world that could still be bought for a farthing in my world. Jerry Chicken

Sadly, I couldn’t find a picture of one. I might have to pop into the vintage sweet shop in Farnham on the weekend…