After spending much of the end of last week erecting scaffolding outside the back of our house, they’ve now discovered that they can’t actually open the window to shout instructions from inside the bathroom to outside, because the scaffolding is flush against the window frame. Brilliant. Cue much running up and down stairs like loonies, and many out-of-puff plumbers.

So here I am, waiting for the builders, or possibly plumbers, to finish and the loss adjuster to turn up all of whom were reputed to show up at about twenty past eleven. But the builder arrived at quarter to ten, and then promptly turned off my water before disappearing again until just now.

I wouldn’t mind so much but there’s a horrific banging noise coming from the bathroom now… and I daren’t look.