The study is nearly finished. This is good, as while I can take change ok, utter-fucking-turmoil is something I struggle a bit with. The walls are painted (Mr. Do You Want This Done Right? is asking when I'm going to paint the ceiling. I LOVE you baby, but I've painted the ceilings in every other room in this house, my own personal line in the sand is here-I hereby solemnly swear, on the round of Reblouchon we have in the fridge, that I absolutely do not want to paint that goddamn ceiling. So it is written, so it shall be.)

The boy has done an incredible job with the wiring. Angus is big on cabling, and as such our study-which unfortunately, due to us being on various trials, etc with work, is throbbing with expensive kit designed to facilitate, radiate and repudiate. Pick a new gizmo and chances are we may have one, although the truth is we don't actually like having all this shit, especially as trials invariably have us swapping out wifi routers, inserting sims into test phones, and re-bricking the walls of our fabulous firewall. So there are many, many cables in this room.

And, being an old house, it figures that in the entire room, there's only one outlet.

Nice.

On Sunday, sweaty and foul, Angus informed me of our new task-we got to pull up floorboards and put cables under the boards.

I stared at our ancient soft wood floorboards. "You want to go under those?" I asked with a shudder.

"Oh yes," he replied nonchalantly. "We have to put the cables under the floor so they'll be out of the way. "It's only earth under there, what are you afraid of, what do you think could be under there?"

"Dead people. Ghosts. Something from a horror movie, and I'm no Jamie Lee Curtis, I can't pull that shit off." I reply with a whisper.

We rip up the floorboards, a sweaty, nasty horrible job. With a crack the board came up and we saw that these floorboards aren't as old as the ones upstairs-those are original in the house, these have been laid since (we know as these were tongue and groove floorboards. I sound like I talk dirty to the New Yankee, don't I?) Once we lifted them, I could see Angus was right-our house is built literally on top of the earth, which lay about a foot down (am not sure what I expected. It's not like houses were built on Faberge Eggs or bouncy castles, of course they rest on the ground. Idiot.) I peer down and see a scrap of ancient wallpaper, so I reach in to pick it up.

"See any rat droppings down there?" Angus asks casually.

I drop the wallpaper like a hot potato and wonder how I can cauterize my arm off.

We run the cables under the floor, and I even throw a cling-film wrapped picture of Angus and I down there. He looks at me like I was mental, and I shrug. "I would've loved it if we could find a picture of the first family that owned this house, I thought in maybe 100 years someone would get a grin out of seeing a picture of the family that owned the house in 2006."

The first owner of this house was a brother, his other brother owned the house next door. What trips me out is that in 1914, the brother bought this house for £90. Times, they have truly changed.

The floorboards go back in place and you can't tell we were ever there. The place is now well-wired and humming along.

What we needed last was a new cabinet of some kind to hold CDs and documents. We are a bit tired of Ikea-they have some cute things, and are great if you're not sure what you need so you go for something you're not going to mind chucking someday. But we did have an idea of what we wanted, and we found one online at-of all places-an antique shop specializing in church antiques.

We went there yesterday. This place is packed, not only because many churches are being deconsecrated as their flock stray, but because they want to be kitted with the latest and greatest in Biblical technology. So pulpits from the 1700's sat, forlorn, next to church stools of the Shaker variety, and a massive pipe organ sat dismantled, still gleaming in the corner.

I know this sounds bizarre, but I've always wanted my own pew. My very own pew. It's true, God and I are at odds (but he owes me money), but still-a pew is a pew. People's hopes and dreams soak into the wood, and they become soft after years of people shifting up and down them. I wanted a pew. We found some pews and, there amongst several other things, was the world's most perfect cabinet.

Angus haggled with the guy over the cabinet, a few lights, and another cabinet we thought we could use as a linen cupboard (turns out the soon-to-be linen cupboard is from a Methodist church in Brighton, and is about 100 years old.) I, meanwhile, found leftover church robes and spent time draping them over ancient trunks, pretending I was Cristo and this was my new draped creation.

I wondered if just being there and buying former church furniture was like pennance, because I could do with a whole lot of that.

The Brighton cabinet is being stripped and may be re-painted, but right now it sits under a tarp outside, waiting for its new home (another Cristo creation by Helen!) The cabinet for my study comes home tomorrow-it has the old-fashioned leaded windows, and two panes were missing so the antique center will fix them for us.

I haven't gotten my pew yet (but as the man there said, "the pew market has dropped out", which makes me wonder: who the fuck was asking for pews?). There was also a wooden carved angel that captured my fantasty and I would love, but maybe that's for another time. We have to go easy on the religious artifacts, lest people think that we drink our wine straight out of Corinthians.

We came home and surveyed our study, still covered in God dust.

It looks fantastic.

Pictures to follow.

-H.

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