"Action this day"

Winston Churchill's famous comment on communication when he wanted something to happen urgently always strikes a chord when I hear it, and it is so apposite to those of us living in the land of "slowly ... slowly". A friend whose mother lives in Spain used to recount the story of "Mañana" which translated literally means "tomorrow". She explained that it didn't mean that in Spain. It meant "Not today", which gave no promise to do something soon.

Well we have action on our damp, condensation and mould problems - which have worsened this year (despite the fact that we have had hardly any rain). A succession of experts have been up to the house, a civil engineer, the architect who "designed" the house, a builder, a decorator - in fact everyone except Uncle Tom Cobley. An absolute flurry. The end result is that we are getting action this week. The decorators are arriving tomorrow, to clean the mould and are then painting the whole of the interior with an anti-fungal paint. Demotronics, although at a date to be confirmed, are coming to clean and service the air conditioning system (this apparently can cause problems). And then the icing on the cake is that a local firm will come up and install a wood burning stove (a convector stove) which will give a dry heat and thus cause less condensation than our gas fire.

It is ironic in such a country with a warm climate that these problems should arise for three months of every year. Many times it is warmer outside than inside, and so the wood burning stove will be a real boon. It is being fitted into our fireplace which should look good as well. As I barrow the logs from the drive to our storage area I shall be singing "I'm a lumberjack, and I'm okay". Perhaps a rugged checked shirt might be necessary.

"What price salvation now?" as George Bernard Shaw wrote years ago. Well the cry might as well go up "What price a damp course?" as they seem to be almost unknown here. We are told that this should resolve the problem. If it doesn't, the next step is proper double glazing. It's like setting fire to a vast pile of Euros. And that might keep us warm ...