Ah, virtue...

[desperance]

Technically, it's supposed to be its own reward, and one should seek none other; but I was virtuous entirely, I cleaned and tidied and vacuumed the living-room; and the nice man came from the council, and behold: they are titivating the terraces, and they want to do work on my house for no charge. It's a facelift job, basically; they will replace the boundary railing at the front, tidy up the stonework and the guttering, like that. And the big one? New front door. Yay. Technically people are supposed to pay a percentage of the door's cost if they go for that option, but I'm so broke I probably won't need to. Double-yay.

Further to this whole sorting-out-the-house thing, I have ordered a new vacuum cleaner, with supersuck and filtration and designed-to-cope-with-cat-hair and all that. Through the interwebs, where it was remarkably cheap. And I have startled my washing-machine by filling it with pillows, tra-la.

I did also lift a corner of a carpet on the landing, just to see what lay underneath: but the immediate answer is a rather strange layer of hardboard (I think), which I'm slightly less keen on digging up. Because God only knows what's under that, what it was laid down to disguise...

Umm. Shouldn't I be working, or something? Every now and then I open up some half-done stories and poke at them gently, but not with any conviction...

Comments

[ellarien]

Envelope scheme? Rather a small envelope, if it is. In Sheffield they used to do roofs and front windows, I think.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

When this was originally mooted, roofs were included; but the evil council redirected a percentage of the money elsewhere, and couldn't afford roofs any more. We had a bit of an argument about that (which I lost, of course, so I had to pay for my own roof repairs last year, mutter scowl).

Windows I think can be included if needed, but I am newly double-glazed anyway (thanks to another govt scheme: almost everything that gets done here under Project House is done at other people's expense, one way or another. I'm not proud at all, I find).