A Postcard From Chaos

Not one to be prone to exaggeration, but this week I have mostly been living in the Apocolypse.

The conservatory build drags on endlessly and to add insult to chaos, we also had Magic Mike and his mates turn up to start turning our back lawn into a patio. I’m not saying good looks go a long way in life, but when the chap came to quote us for that work, he could have said he’d be setting fire to the house as part of his work and Louise would have agreed to go ahead. Apparently, he looks like a young Elvis but with an eight-pack. How do I know he has an eight-pack? Well, thanks to the warm weather he and his mates walked up our drive drenched in baby oil, with their budgie smuggler shorts on ready to start work.

Despite the warm weather I have had to keep my top on as I did not want to intimidate them.

In a normal house, turning a lawn into a patio is fairly simple. But when the access to the back of your house is via a near-vertical hill then it becomes challenging. The comedy show of watching them trying to get a mini digger down that incline was too horrible to watch.

Almost as horrible as the scale of their quote, but we’ve been trying for a year to find someone brave enough to take it on, so needs must.

My aversion to chaos is peaking this week as all this and the conservatory is coming to a head simultaneously. We’ve had electricians here, plumbers not here (coming next week, honest), tilers and the builders finishing off, all whilst The Chippendales are romping around the back garden causing absolute destruction to my property. At one point one of them was doing the boy band thing under our hosepipe. No wonder I am constantly objectified as a piece of meat just because of the way I look!

Wandering around where our garden used to be, when it is still in the “destroy” phase is just horrifying to me. My brain is looking for completion, tidiness and a lack of chaos and it cannot even foresee a time when that might be the case again. It causes me anxiety and stress like nothing else.

I’ll remind you that we have a new cat who can’t go out yet (perfect with workmen in and out all day) and a puppy not yet house trained. So every day we are herding them into various rooms to avoid them running out and simultaneously trying to find somewhere the puppy can pee that isn’t our living room rug. I’m so stressed my hair is growing back.

Then, to add to my wonderful week, on Tuesday I tested positive for Covid. I had felt rough for a little while and it was getting much worse on Tuesday, so I tested. I was genuinely shocked to see the double lines and spent a few days feeling ill.

Then on Wednesday evening, our lovely neighbour popped round on the verge of a mental breakdown/arrest hurling all sorts of abuse at us because some soil from our digging had gone into his garden. To cut a long story short we told him where to go in very direct terms and not long after, he came to apologise to me and has since sought Louise out to do the same. He has a track record for this stuff and despite his sheepish apology, I’m pretty sure this won’t be the last such episode.

I cannot wait for a time in the hopefully not too distant future when we have our house and lives back. My kingdom for some normality.

In a way it is fortunate we have no travel plans as the current chaos there would perhaps tip me over the edge. It seems we now live in a country where doing things like going on holiday is too complex. I’d ponder how we got here, but you get what you vote for I guess. If I keep expressing my views on the shower in power then I may be able to get myself on a flight, but to Rwanda rather than Florida. I have heard it is simultaneously lovely there, so nobody should have an issue with refugees going there and at the same time so awful that it will deter refugees from coming here. Makes perfect sense.

Here’s to a calmer week to come. Hopefully the garden should reach the “putting it back together” stage and we can make some tangible progress getting the conservatory habitable. What could possibly go wrong?

Till the next time…..