Monday 27th October 2025

This is our living room.

It contains everything out of the kitchen.

It feels and looks very untidy.

It may very well be like this until 5th November when the worktops are fitted.

But it is a Monday, and after two days going to the gym, I had a day off.

So could lay in bed all morning. Only I was awake at five, laying there until it got light.

Jools was already up, feeding Scully, so I thought I'd better get up too.

Jools went swimming, then to the kitchen supplier then to see her Aunt, leaving me at home to wait for Craig and for the chaos and noise to start.

I caught up on videos and podcasts, then got down to trying to finish The Secret Commonwealth before the end of the day.

It was a fine day outside, and really we should have been making the best of it, but instead I read as Lyra made her way ever eastwards.

Craig arranged the plumber and gas fitter so that by Wednesday, the downstairs toilet, basin and cooker would be installed.

The day for Craig was mainly plastering, filling in the holes and cableways created the previous week, all ready for painting at the end of the week.

He just got on with it.

I read.

Jools brought home meat pasties for lunch, which we made vanish, then back to reading while the sun sank in the best and the short afternoon drew to an end.

Craig left at half four, I grabbed some shots, though it doesn't look like much was done, but its all on track.

Soup for supper with some old stale bread.

I was going to watch some football, but it felt like I had been up for over a day, and once I finished the book, I went upstairs where Jools was already asleep.