Building to a climax

Into the autumn Bogdan and his crew were working like nutters getting the kitchen done, the stairwell plastered and the study given board walls and plasterboard ceiling. Actually getting the stairwell done involved cutting through the reinforced concrete floor: fireworks when circular saw met steel mesh. Pretty. Plastering meant the water boiler could go in, and the washing machine. First hot shower? Nope. Boiler not working. Turned out there was a leak under the floor so boiler was always on the boil but water was never more than tepid. Leak fixed, boiler boiled... hot shower. Utter, utter bliss.
In August the furniture and boxes finally arrived, after some narky phone calls to London and Bucharest. Not too much was broken despite the local carriers hurling boxes marked 'FRAGILE' from lorry to cart to stack in house. NB the Romanian word for fragile is fragil.
Bogdan tackled the stairs as a solo project and despite initial angst and much measuring and remeasuring, they went in sweet as silk, smooth as a nut, and at last I could trot up and down from kitchen to study without going outside. The cat designated them a play area. The bathroom ditto, except when the underfloor heating went in and on, when Hobbs learned that stretching out on the bathmat was a good plan.