Christmas in a building site

Two months down, here's some observations on progress and life in a building site.

• Darren, Chris and Bogdan finished their 2025 efforts by pouring footings for the back kitchen wall, then they swept and cleaned the paths, all in a horrible rain storm.  They were so efficient that they left the site before we could give them the Christmas presents we'd put aside for them.
• The heating is confused and kinda broken.  With the house split in two, and the thermostat in basically the coldest, draftiest area of the house spaces are either swelteringly hot, or cold.  The thermostat gets cold during the night, bringing the heating on in the bedrooms and making us sweat.  Plus, Keir's radiator is broken and won't switch on, whilst Ula's radiator is broken and won't switch off.  On average, everyone is fine.
• The hot water system is also kinda broken.  For no good reason we can determine, at some point over Christmas, whilst no work was going on, it stopped delivering reliable hot water.  Now it's patchy.  And we can't work out why.  We've decided to limp through rather than invest effort and money finding and fixing it.
• As part of their excavatations they pulled up the oil pipe that used to feed the Aga.  Unfortunately they didn't cap it off cleanly, so it dripped heating oil throughout Christmas until eventually I followed my nose and noticed the issue.  A quick call to Mark got it sorted.
• The kitchen order is now locked in.  All the appliances - sexy, sexy and stupid expensive Miele - and the cabinetry and worktops are ordered and ready to be cued for delivery whenever Mark is ready.  This was the one large outstanding thing for us to pick up, so it's good to get it done.  And exciting too.
• 2026 has started slow then fast.  Just Chris and Darren for a few days, then 7 on site, and blam, new footings, Cameron's bedroom and the landing now has a hoarding in it, tiles off the roof.   Stalled now though, they've taken Friday off because of the storm.
• Christmas at home was fine.  With almost no hosting, it was actually quite nice and chill.  Islay managed to cook a great Christmas meal in our reduced kitchen size.  I think she treated it like an enjoyable challenge.

It's good to see progress again after a two week break.  I am trying to be patient with progress and understanding that ground works take time, but I'm itching to see above ground construction.  Everyone says, this phase takes ages, and then it'll go up really quick, and I believe them, but I still want to see it!