Drills and destruction
Today the builders turned up and got serious. Armed with drills, saws, hammers and God knows what else, they proceeded to tear the kitchen down. This meant boarding-up all the doors in and out of the old kitchen so that we now only have access to the cooking area via the front door and round the side of the house.
The noise has been indescribable and inescapable. Dolly and I ended up barricading ourselves into the snug, but it didn't make a lot of difference. Fortunately I didn't have any calls until later on, and Dolly tucked herself into the gap in the desk where my legs go, curled up and went to sleep.
The crunch came at 4pm when I had two very important back-to-back calls. I asked another mum to pick James up from school but of course when he got home he couldn't work out how to get in the house. Emerging from the snug I hissed at Will to go and get him. The penny dropped tortuously slowly (possibly deliberately so).
Call number two and this time I asked the two boys, now glued to 'Suicide Squad' to watch Dolly for the thirty minutes it would take to run. In that time I can honestly say I have never heard Dolly make so much noise. When she wasn't barking, growling or howling, she was outside the door gnawing; on my croquet set, a tape measure, masking tape and a screw driver. Finally she settled on her squeaky frog toy, brought it into the snug where I was trying to concentrate on the call, and squawked it at full blast. Ducking out while my colleagues were talking, I grabbed her collar and hauled her out of the room.
After what felt like a lifetime the call came to a close. Incandescent with rage and frustration, I railed against the laziness, uselessness, selfishness and untidiness of my sons, at which point Eddie arrived home from work. Too stressed out and too late to go the the gym, I chose instead the relative peace and quiet of the cricket ground. A place to catch up on emails somewhere I wouldn't be disturbed by either teenagers, puppies, high speed drills or men asking for cups of coffee.
The noise has been indescribable and inescapable. Dolly and I ended up barricading ourselves into the snug, but it didn't make a lot of difference. Fortunately I didn't have any calls until later on, and Dolly tucked herself into the gap in the desk where my legs go, curled up and went to sleep.
The crunch came at 4pm when I had two very important back-to-back calls. I asked another mum to pick James up from school but of course when he got home he couldn't work out how to get in the house. Emerging from the snug I hissed at Will to go and get him. The penny dropped tortuously slowly (possibly deliberately so).
Call number two and this time I asked the two boys, now glued to 'Suicide Squad' to watch Dolly for the thirty minutes it would take to run. In that time I can honestly say I have never heard Dolly make so much noise. When she wasn't barking, growling or howling, she was outside the door gnawing; on my croquet set, a tape measure, masking tape and a screw driver. Finally she settled on her squeaky frog toy, brought it into the snug where I was trying to concentrate on the call, and squawked it at full blast. Ducking out while my colleagues were talking, I grabbed her collar and hauled her out of the room.
After what felt like a lifetime the call came to a close. Incandescent with rage and frustration, I railed against the laziness, uselessness, selfishness and untidiness of my sons, at which point Eddie arrived home from work. Too stressed out and too late to go the the gym, I chose instead the relative peace and quiet of the cricket ground. A place to catch up on emails somewhere I wouldn't be disturbed by either teenagers, puppies, high speed drills or men asking for cups of coffee.
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