BUILDERS (1)

Ah yes...

Having builders in your home...

Such a relaxing situation.

It's not their fault of course, they're just doing a job and, furthermore, they're doing a job that you've requested them to do, so it would be churlish to complain about the fact that they're there, but the upheaval in your life, especially if you're anything like me and have a very rigid view of your life and are very set in your ways, can be quite unsettling.

You can, of course, get used to anything, and it is sometimes good to remind yourself that, no matter how unsettled you might feel in such a situation, many more people in this world are struggling with far worse conditions on a daily basis and, for them, perhaps it's with no end to it in sight.

We have adjusted to sleeping in the tent-like (shudder!) environment of the attic space, and negotiating our way into the bathroom with a lamp during the night, and brushing our teeth using the kitchen sink. We've even adjusted to the slight ripeness of not having a bath, shower or basin to wash in and borrowing the facilities of others whenever we can. We even got quite used to leaving the house and trying to find things to do for the duration of the long working day because it was our "week off" and mooching around with nothing much to do and all day to do it in is kind of what holidays ought to be.

However, here I find myself at the start of week two and reflecting upon week one as things are about to get really tricky. Because of the break-in at work, I now have to at least attempt to work from home for a while whilst downstairs the crashing and banging of the work continues. Not only that but we're approaching a key phase and the toilet might just disappear for a significant portion of the day, not that I'd've wanted to interrupt the work anyway just so that I could have a pee.

Half a dozen of those and it starts to get embarrassing...

Then there's the knotty little issue of battling my way down to the kitchen and trying to make myself a drink or some lunch, and whether there's a certain amount of etiquette involved in boiling yourself a kettle and whether this magically transforms the builders into "guests" for the duration of the brew up...?

Not only that but my work is rather dependent upon a regular electricity supply, something that I suspect might be subject to occasional interruptions as the electrics are worked upon in the bedroom and the bathroom.

I think that I might just hide myself, Gollum-like, in the attic, with a bucket, a sandwich and a thermos flask, and hope for the best, but it's hardly the most professional of environments for me to trigger my creativity in order to pay for the work that's being done now, is it?