Fireplaces and grumpiness.

Have had a day of days really. 8am the two fellas from the fireplace company turned up to knock out the old fireplace and replace it with a new one. John still didn't know, and I wanted it to be a surprise. Anyway this is what the old fireplace looked like with its cracked, chipped loose tiles and boarded up middle to stop the draught.

It had kind of grown on me in a weird way, but it was in too much of a bad state of repair to make it good, and I wanted to be draught free and have a fire. The two blokes took quite a while with bolster chisel and hammer to try and get it out, it was solid concrete behind the tiles reinforced with metal. after it was finally chiselled out it looked like this.

They started by putting the hearth in first then the fireplace, mantle and fire. It has a remote controlled fire which is quite cool, and motion activated downlighters. They did such a lovely job and cleaned up after themselves too. Im so pleased with the final fireplace, it makes such a difference to the room.

So all was good until I had a pang of guilt and confessed said fireplace installation to John via text with photo. He turned into Victor Meldrew, moaned about not telling him, and how much I'd spent, I was spending money like water etc. etc. He was all huffy basically. We had already discussed replacing the fireplace, so what was the problem? After a few hours online with some sensible women and their advice (one in particular, you know who you are LD) it transpires that Mr Grumpy Pants is grumpy not because of the fireplace but because of other stuff like work. When he got home we had a talk (and I appealed to his basic instincts by offering my norks to him too......... it worked!) Seems he needs to feel more wanted, as do I so we agreed on that for a start, and he isn't happy in work as he had had someone elses fulltime job lumbered on him, for no additional money, so he is in talks with the Head, Deputy, his manager and his union rep on Monday to talk about it all. He is actively looking for another job as well. He doesn't mind that I'm not working either. So Mr Grumpy Pants is no longer grumpy, he's now Mr Happy Boxers instead.

He wryly smiled at the new fireplace, said he didn't love it but didn't not like it either. He even played with the motion sensor lights too.....