but.... kudos to me Mumsy for offering, unprompted, to selflessly turf her silver monstrosity* out onto the drive for three or four days whilst i invade the garage to get poloey things sorted.
bloody lifesaver, i would have been trying to get various head/sump etc things finished off in the garden or kitchen otherwise and got nowhere. (doing them in a lit, relatively warm, dry, windless, expansive and unobstructed room with some scrap carpet underlay to put things on and plenty tools & bits to hand proved hard and long-winded enough!)
got back in at about 2am (oops
) after dealing with disconnecting inlet from head (arrrgh, the solution turned out so simple in the end), cleaning up ports, finding a way to more easily rotate the cam (and see that the back of the valves really should have a quick brush-down), chiseling the remains of the old gasket off the sump, cleaning/degreasing/rust-scraping it to a state of relative smoothness and cleanliness, doing similar for the cam & exhaust manifold covers, and putting some primer on them head has only just about stopped reeling from the fumes even though the doors were wide open and i was pretty much taking a breath outside, running in holding it to do a few quick sprays, and running out again! (zero ventilation!) ... hehehehehe
so yeah an odd flash of insight, sympathy and generosity there. as rare and as welcome as gold dust.
cheers mum
...and thanks 
i was still a bit shirty at the time of accepting the offer as an hour earlier i'd been receiving stick for the amount of mess i was making whilst getting the pistons ringed up and inserted... whoops
* the rover 25. still dont like the feel of it.. i was the one maneuvering it as generosity only stretched to giving up the space, not going out in the wet twilight (with debilitating sinus infection) to move the car! awful awful drive response
, the flywheel cutout cover, and the right driveshaft.