Wednesday 8 July 2026: Should have taken a month off

After we finished work on Friday, we nipped out to take the dog for a walk and to drop in on the poet’s mum, as we hadn’t seen her in a few weeks, due to the house move. At the end of her road we almost went the wrong way, towards the old house, but the poet remembered just in time and we went the right way.

On the way home, we went to pick up a takeaway from where was once our local when we lived in the area four years ago. The owner was busy, but he recognised the poet and asked him where he’d been!

Saturday morning we were up bright and early to drop the dog off with Son #1 while we went shopping. It took much longer at the appliance store than we thought it would, but we found an oven and a fridge/freezer that we liked. The fridge was our second choice as the first one was out of stock and they weren’t taking more orders for it yet. While we were there Son #1 sent us a video of the dog enjoying his walk in the woods with their dog.

We did the shopping on the way to collect the dog, where we saw Son #2 as well, who was taking his brother to Sheffield for the rest of the day, to a podcast festival. Once home, the poet started to research how to instal the new oven, but he realised it was the wrong kind of oven. It’s one for a tall housing unit rather than an under-counter unit, as there has to be a clear gap between the oven and the hob (stove), and we don’t have that kind of space. So he spent time researching a replacement.

First thing Sunday morning, he went back to the store to get the oven switched, which they were happy to do. They already have a 30-day window during which a customer may simply change their mind, but in our case we were making a swap and paying them more money. We decided to go for a slot-in standalone all in one oven with hob. This means taking more of the kitchen apart and butchering the worktop, but it will be a better oven with more capacity, and only one hard-wired connection.

For the rest of the day, we continued emptying boxes and bags and distributing stuff and making space in the office and the garage. The dog and I took the poet along on our new local walk where he, the poet, spent more time watching grasshoppers than anything else.

On Monday, the poet went off to work to do what he had to do both on side and online. Then he came home to do everything else. While he was out I was calling tradesmen again: someone to come and repair the roller shutter garage door; someone to come and remove the roller shutters from the door and the windows; someone to come and go over the security alarm system with us; someone to come and quote for a new bathroom and those doors a previous joiner ghosted me over.

I arranged for someone to come almost every day this week. The council were already coming on Tuesday to collect our surplus furniture, I’m already booked in to take the poet and his car to the garage for a service, and the skip company were already coming on Thursday to collect the skip. I started to get back into a routine, though, as best I could.

First hour of the day is still dirty cuppa hour, which also translates as waking-up hour. Then it’s my reading hour, followed by a housework hour and an hour to walk the dog. All was going well until it was time to walk the dog, but it was already too hot to take him out – we’re on our third heatwave of the year this week, with it peaking on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday again. We really need rain by now. I decided to postpone his walk until the evening, when it would be cooler and the poet could come with us as well, if he wanted to.

I put a washload through, then spent the first two hours of the day, over my cup of tea, moving more files over from Rocketmail and reading my book before making those phone calls and taking photographs to send to the tradesmen. A few calls for submissions landed and I saved about half a dozen to have a think about. One of them pays $100, which is good these days for under 1,000 words. Another, the deadline is just over a week away, and I’d like to have a go at writing something ‘into the dark’ for that, perhaps.

My breakfast hour was next, but I hung the washing out first.

After my breakfast hour, the next two hours of the afternoon were allocated to book reviews I still hadn’t written up, there was an hour for my afternoon tea, or daytime snack, and another two hours were then allocated to client editing. The client job requires the full-size monitor and keyboard, and that wasn’t set up yet. So I started to set up the pop-up office so I could at least use the desktop computer when I need to, but it was all in the garage and the garage door was malfunctioning…

Instead, I finished writing up yesterday’s blog post, started today’s, then finished writing up the first of those book reviews, for Monday just gone. The other book review is for next Monday.

Last hour of the day is allocated to the following day’s blog, but I often use it for tying up loose ends and leaving work in a place where I can easily pick it up at the start of the next allocated session.

I didn’t do a thing as far as work was concerned on Tuesday, other than set up the desktop computer on the pop-up desk in what will be the office. It’s still pretty much a junk room at the moment, but I was able to carve out some space in the middle of the room to set up.

I had to go and rescue a couple of cushions from the skip as the pop-up chair is a bit low for the height of my monitor. I tested that the wi-fi worked, and to be honest, it was pretty brilliant compared to how it was at the old house. I’m still using my phone as a hotspot, so we do rely a lot on that signal (the poet does the same with his phone, using his work phone as a hotspot when he has to do online odds and sods for work). But once there was a signal, the desktop had no problem whatsoever seeing it.

Our internet is scheduled for 29 July. We’re exhausting regular satellite telly, even though we do have all available channels apart from kids, so we’re looking forward to catching up on all our streaming. We’re also looking forward to having the internet in so we can work anywhere in the house, although once the office has been emptied, we’ll both be working in there.

But we’re managing.

The rest of Tuesday was spent making phone calls, still arranging tradesmen, receiving tradesmen, showing people the bathroom, the doors we want doing, the work in the garden, and getting quotes. It really is a full time job and it’s why I wanted a whole month off work rather than just two weeks. At this rate, I still might get my whole month off, but at least I can work if I get a window.

The rest of this week, most of the afternoons will hopefully be spent on the client edit. But we do still have trades booked in to the end of the week, and we have to take the poet’s car for its service today, in tandem and in extreme heat, around a further two trade visits.

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