Everything hurts. The skin is falling off my fingertips. I have a 4 inch bruise on one foot. Every finger, arm, and leg has cuts and scrapes. I -
Hang on a minute.
I’m getting ahead of myself here.
On Saturday I went to my local branch of the bank. I never go to the bank. I hate going to the bank, I always feel like a dork way more accustomed to internet banking who shows up in public looking like I’ve never seen the sun or, for that matter, a fashion magazine. I showed up at the busy counter on Saturday morning and plopped down a huge yogurt pot.
“Hi!” I said cheerfully. “I need to cash in some coins!”.
The cashier looked dubiously at me. I had a huge glob of white gloss paint in the front of my hair and a poppy seed stuck between my front teeth. Of courseI did not know that either component was there at the time, I had thought I was looking somewhat normal, but I can understand his hesitation at my presentation. I stood there with my giant yogurt pot (Dannon, passion fruit and peaches for the record), my wallet, my paying-in book, and a copy of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas because everyone’s buying those in August (that and I waited for the bank to open, perused a book shop, and found a “must have” for the babies this Christmas as I’m determined to start traditions. I’m all about thinking ahead.)
“How many coins do you have?” he asked. “Shall I get a few coin bags?”
“Oh you’ll need more than a few,” I say cheerily. I thrust the yogurt pot at the cashier. He warily puts one fingernail beneath the lid and lifts it, expecting either a giant foam snake to jump out while we all shout “Surprise!” or my pet toad Godfrey to jump out at him. Instead he sees -
You know, I’ve done it again. Lemme’ backtrack.
I moved to the UK in March 2004. As soon as I moved in, I moved in with Angus. The day I arrived Angus showed me a pint glass jar that he had been collecting two pound coins in. Two pound coins aren’t rare, but they’re not that common either. Great big fuckers, they are rimmed with gold and are an enormous silver coin that is worth – go figure – two pounds. Angus reasoned that every time we got a two pound coin we should chuck it into the jar and when the jar was full we go away for a weekend with the money.
So we did that.
In 2004 we took a long weekend away and Angus plunked a pint glass full of coins down to pay (I hid in the car out of shame. He isn’t bothered – he says it’s legal tender, they should deal with it.)
In 2006 we didn’t go anywhere as we’d just bought this house. We spent all our time painting and moving into our new home.
In 2007 the jar – now grown into an antique church offering box – continued to fill. After our trip to Iceland we didn’t go anywhere as the pregnancy was too rough to be more than 15 minutes away from the hospital.
And now it’s 2008. The church offering box overflowed into a glass I nicked from the Orient Express. That filled up, too.
We have two last big expenses left on this house, and then the rest we should be able to cover slowly through our salaries.
We have just enough in savings to cover one of those expenses, but not both.
We looked at the glass.
We counted it.
Inside was enough money to take Angus, Nick, Nora and I to Rio, Hong Kong, or Australia.
Instead I cashed in all of the coins on Saturday, and this is what we’ve been slaving away to do.

This is our living room, with all of the furniture pushed into one part of it. It’s a beautiful room with a concrete floor. Those wires you see everywhere? Those are the cables for the electrics that Angus has built into the walls and will soon be built into a cabinet. Angus designed our extension so that it has no wires on the ground. I love that.

The living room and dining room are one giant room, roughly 40 square meters (430 square feet).

On Saturday I cashed in our two pound coins and we bought a floor for our home.
It took 45 boxes to cover that amount of space.
We bought solid wood bamboo floors (no Pandas were starved in the makings of this floor. I mean, in case you were wondering.) The whole upstairs is done in oak and pine, we wanted something different for the downstairs. We got it in backbreaking knee-aching work.

First we had to lay Latex levelling, which is far less interesting than the name implies.

Then we had to lay down underlay, which is also less flirtatious than it sounds.

Although the babies liked it.

This morning I woke up and wondered where my clothes were.
“Here I am!” they said. “Shall you wear me again?”
“I suppose,” I replied. “It’s too damp to dry clothes out again, so I have to wear the same home renovation clothes I’ve been wearing for three days. Come walk over here and let me put you on. But how about this time I wear you, instead of the other way around?”
I worked the fashion. Seriously, the next time you think my life sounds glamorous, just refer to these pics, ok?

And we started.

And two days later it’s done. The skirting board is still to go up, but the floor is in and it’s already appreciated.

My babies are inches away from crawling, and they finally have a beautiful and safe floor to do it on.

We’re not going to Australia.
We are, however, able to walk and crawl on our floors.
All thanks to our two pound coins.
-H.