I'd agreed to get up silly early. Ethan and his mates needed to get to Chelmsford for 5:00am. I had lots of work to do and one early morning wouldn't kill me. If I dropped the boys off I could be at my desk for 6:00am giving me a good couple of hours of head down thinking time.
The boys were all ready when they needed to be, they got to school as required and I got my early start at work.
I'd packed breakfast in my handbag to eat at work which had decided to leak all over my handbag and its contents. So the first job at work was washing everything and cleaning it of my "overnight oats" (not a euphemism).
Head down, thinking and doing happening very efficiently. Meeting at 9:00 and then straight into another meeting. Just as I come up for air I get a call. The people due to fix my front door tell me they'll arrive at 11:30. They were scheduled between 12 and 5. I hop in the car and race home (as much as one can race across town).
On the way home husband calls and tells me his car is parked at the front and the gas company have dug up the entire street and decided to put barriers up at the back of our house. I have nowhere to park off street, our cleaner is due and has nowhere to park and the door idiots have nowhere to park.
I park down the street passing my cleaner's car struggling to find space. i phone Dave and tell him the cleaner is out back. He can't do anything about it because he's immobilised with a bad back.
I need to put a parking permit in the car but I'm parked a way away from my house. I can't get in through the front door thanks to scumbag burglars and their August visit. I fight my way into the back of the house going through the gas company barriers. I express my annoyance to the gas company folk because blocking my drive was not something we'd been told about. They tell me they'd tried to knock on the door earlier in the day but there wasn't an answer. "Yep, because we were both at work, but I need four vehicles parked on the property now, or in the next half hour." They'd seen my husband's car leave the house but not my "blue" car. "Yes, that's because I left home before 5am and then, because I was up, dressed and functioning I went straight to work!!!"
They made it possible to get to the back of the house. I'd parked elsewhere, my cleaner had parked elsewhere, but it left a big space for the door idiots.
I grabbed a visitor permit and went back to my car to protect it from the traffic wardens (bearing in mind I'd paid a penalty charge notice for Dart Charge earlier in the day - that really annoyed me).
I got in checked in with the cleaner who I hadn't seen for months. Checked husband's state of disability, and decided that the gas workers had been very accommodating so I went to offer tea and coffee.
Five teas and coffees later, plus one for the cleaner and one for me, I plugged in laptop and started work.
Door idiots arrived. I told them there was a lovely big space at the back of the house that I'd arranged especially for them.
They opted to park on double yellow lines across the road. They were cutting me a temporary front door from a lump of wood and thought doing that on a Black and Decker Workmate in the middle of the road opposite the house was preferable to a safe space behind the house. Whatevs. I offered them tea and coffee and they declined.
Back to work.
"Can I use the loo?" It's like having toddlers.
"Here are your mugs back." It's really like having toddlers.
I go to check on husband. He wants drugs and wants to know how to get them. I ensure he has phone and doctor's phone number.
Back downstairs I notice that post includes card to collect package to collect from Post Office.
Back to work.
Questions come from door idiots on regular basis. Do I want a letterbox, a lock etc. etc.
I knew I would have be at home accommodating door idiots at this time so I'd booked supermarket delivery. Just as everyone and everything is in the house, the Tesco delivery guy is avoiding the extension lead in the hall to pop the shopping in the kitchen.
I decide door idiots tea and coffee again. They're in the market this time. I check husband. He wants lunch and tea, and drugs.
Cleaner leaves, I make tea, coffee, and lunch for me and hubby and then deliver, including crossing the road to deliver teas to the Black and Decker workmate in the middle of the road.
I need to get back to work but door idiots think they need more time to cut holes in wood. I tell husband as I deliver tea and lunch, no drugs.
I know I need a quick exit and my car is parked too far away to support that so I move it to the back of the house, in the space that the door idiots didn't want.
I go back to the laptop. Just as time is evaporating husband emerges hunched in pain to tell me to go back to work.
I jump in the car and get to work in the nick of time.
Meeting done I prepare to leave, and then I bump into a couple of people I need to catch up with. An hour later I'm finally walking out of the door.
I have the card for the undelivered parcel so stop off at the sorting office. It's the monthly gin delivery - "Wahay!" I called Dave - do I need to visit the surgery to collect drug order aka prescription?
Dave advises that prescriptions for mega drugs available for me to collect. This gives me a good excuse to collect the referral letter that's been sat at the surgery for several weeks. I really don't want to have to see a specialist and leaving the referral letter sitting at the doctor's surgery gave me the perfect excuse not to do the sensible thing.
Home, and Hannah makes me a cup of tea. Husband is vertical albeit it a bit crooked.
I decide that I cannot be arsed to cook. I propose fish and chips and there are smiles all round.
Dave decides to attempt a careful walk with Hannah to collect drugs from pharmacy while I collect fish and chips.
At home later I enjoy fish and chips and gin and tonic. I'm broken, but decide I still have the energy to type a blog post.
