Z moves

Not moving house, just rooms.

I may have said, earlier this year, that I had a problem with my drawing room fire. I can’t remember what I said and, admittedly, checking back to May or so is a bit much, when I hardly even blog.

The chimney had smoked, I thought, until I realised that the smoke was actually seeping out from the brickwork surround. Luckily, it was the end of the fire-lighting season. I had already thought that a wood burner would be a more sensible option than an open fire and would also enable me to get rid of a fireplace that I’d never liked. However, the thought of getting listed building permission put me off. But now, I needed to deal with the situation anyway, so I’d bite the bullet.

The form for listed building permission turned out to be beyond me. I could understand what to do and fill in all the written parts, but when I had to upload plans and so on, I hadn’t any. I just had some photographs of the fireplace I wanted to remove. It’s a 1929 fireplace and I wanted to restore it to its earlier self. The form said I could upload photos, but I couldn’t, they just didn’t upload, whether copied and pasted or dragged and dropped.

I’m not doing well, on the whole. Superficially, I’m fine. Cheerful and capable and all. But I barely cope. It’s all right, better to keep going, but anything extra scuppers me. And I was really busy from July onwards, so I just left it. However, things have to be dealt with in the end and Justin from the stove place came again to have another look and he says that he can’t do anything without taking out the brickwork. He can’t even put in a built-in stove as the whole shebang may fall down.

I’ll start dealing with it next week. I’m too busy. In the meantime, I’m moving into the dining room. There’s a woodburner in there, plenty of room for a couple of armchairs and a smaller table and a desk and my computer, as well as the dining table and it’s really warm. It’s about the only room where there isn’t a bookcase, so I have three modest piles, comprising 16 books, that I have yet to read, as well as the two I’m reading.

Today, I have got to grips with MailChimp. I have to sort out SmartSurvey, but that’s a job for tomorrow afternoon – I’m out in the morning and then having lunch with a friend.

It’s raining.

One comment on “Z moves

  1. Blue Witch

    If you are still dealing with the LB application and haven’t already worked it out… in our experience, the online portals for Planning and Listed Building permissions are notoriously bad at accepting uploaded docs etc. Most Councils use the same basic all-purpose software and it is donkeys years old and not the best. Some of them also time out after 30 minutes, so anything you have written in their online boxes is lost (ie write your submission separately and copy and paste it in).

    Suggest you just send the suporting photos to the main planning department email address with a brief note saying that they wouldn’t upload in the portal and would they please join them to the application just submitted.

    Good luck!

    Reply

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