Settling in to the new culture

Work is progressing at a pace now, the Kitchen boasts new French doors and a great big hole where the fireplace was, and where the cooker will fit.  We now have a downstairs bog, and yesterday we bought some reclaimed bricks and floorboards for blocking up the door, and sanding for the floor respectively.  As a personal estimate I would say the amount of VAT collected in the UK is about 10% of what it should be.  We always pay by check and insist on a VAT receipt, but people don't always follow what I say (It's my accent, causing people to think I'm Australian for some reason, and when I explain I'm from Middlesbrough it doesn't seem to affect their opinion at all).

The bathroom is "as it was", no lights, no shower and bits of cement stuck to the inside of the bath.  Enforced candlelit baths, not a problem.  The alternative is to wind up the clockwork light.  Forty minutes exercise in return for a feeble blue glow for 5, not my most astute purchase.

I'm beginning to get the hang of what people in Sarf Landan find funny and what doesn't translate.  For instance:

1) In Selco they have a cutting area, which is normally unmanned, and if a customer needs a large sheet or some planks cut down they ring a bell which sounds at the front desk.  The procedure then is for a member of staff on the desk to get on the tannoy and say something like "member of staff to the mill please".  Having clocked this, and being stood at the front desk one time when the bell went off I said "there's trouble at' Mill Mr Arkright". Which was followed by complete silence and a tumbleweed blowing across the floor behind me.

2) When a builder was scoping the job and I was showing him the minimal works that were required to make the place safe and possibly habitable, to a very strict budget, we came eventually to the cellar (which is up some steps from the kitchen bizarrely).  At the time it wasn't safe to enter, having some lose cabling hanging from various boxes.  I said "and in here we're going to install the swimming pool".  Which he wrote down ..

3) One of the Lithuanian builders is called Sparta, so we're waiting for him to say "I am Sparta" to which we will all respond to, in turn, with "No, I am Sparta".  You need to have watched Spartacus to get that one.