I think I’m finally able to report some positive news about my flat:

From what I know I think it’s well possible that it’s time to celebrate the "Bergfest". I’ve just looked through various dictionaries and translating-sites on the internet, but wasn’t able to find a translation for "Bergfest". The "Bergfest [direkt translation: mountain party] is marking the half-time of any long-term project and usually is a time to celebrate and party. I just remember working for the Olympics in Atlanta: In the office we were using, there was a calendar on the wall. The last two or three weeks before the Games were marked with a count-down ending on the day of the Opening Ceremony, showing how much everyone anticipated the start of the Games. Then, the next few days were left blank, before another count-down set in marking the end of the Games, when all the chaos would finally leave the city again! J

This is a bit what the "Bergfest" is like!

So, in my case this does not neccessarily apply time-wise for I still don’t know how long all this is going to last, but I think I’m now kind of beyond the point of maximum chaos!!!

A lot of things have been happening over the last few weeks:

The roof is complete and to my surprise it seems to be holding off the rain, too! Well, I’m glad to say that over the last couple of weeks it hasn’t really been raining in Hamburg but even when that monumental rain came down in the last week of July, I did not really get much water inside!

The roofing tiles on the look really smart, the slate tiles on the sides of the oriel look good, too, there’s a new gutter on the back-side of the house, which is finally even tilted towards the correct side and even the lead facings around the windows and the chimneys are fixed.

After some minor mis-haps all the windows in the attic are fitted into the correct places and look really cool and sunny!

The balcony is completely new, too. The pretty rotten wood panelling is new and – not being a fan of only going half the way – we decided to lay down some brand new light blue tiles, too.

All the carpet in the attic-room is out. On Monday I sort of joined the work force (who normally refuse to let me help in any way, except for making the coffee!) by getting down on my hands and knees and scraping off 25 square meters of the remainders of the carpet. This wasn’t really my job either but coming home after work, I just felt the need to do something very physical and more or less useful for a couple of hours! J

In the living-room the carpet’s gone, too and most of the panelling of the walls and part of the ceiling came down, too. After the rather substantial amounts of rainwater soaking the walls and the floor, they are going to be dried professionally now. For the next weeks or so I will now have to cope with two machines extracting the humidity from the walls and the floor, but it was absolutely neccessary in order to stop the place from getting mouldy.

You see: Even if my place still looks a total chaos, it can’t really get any worse and I hope the time has started when things are beginning to get better day by day!

Tomorrow I woke to the sight of no less than 10 (!) Handy Andys all about to get busy on doing "things" to my flat. Being faces with such an amount of workman’s knowledge, I took flight immediately!

One question remains: Do you think I should dare to choose a mint-green carpet for all my downstairs room? Or should I rather stick to a more conservative non-colour like grey or beige? What do you think?

We’re on the way!

J
Corinna.