Working under lockdown

Is it my fourth or fifth week working from home now? Home being my old childhood house in Chew Valley, certainly not Number 13. Not having the structure of going into the office means it's hard keeping track of what day it is...welcome to the world of my retired Dad! But somehow the house is relatively clean, there's a cake (of some description) in the kitchen, the garden is looking gorgeous and seeds of all kinds are sprouting in the greenhouse.

I still have a lot of learning to do when it comes to gardening. I once famously spent weeks meticulously nurturing some seedlings, which I eventually had to concede were actually just a bunch of weeds! But I am really enjoying it, and it's so nice to spend time outside.

I'm worried I am enjoying living in this bubble too much though and am being spoilt by country living. After Jon and I were finally reunited (he spent 14 days isolated in the barn after developing possible corona symptoms - although I actually think he was just enjoying having no responsibilities and all his meals cooked and delivered to his door!), I went to Number 13 for the first time in a few weeks and had forgotten just how crammed in everyone is in the city.

Anyway...the terrace. Not being able to work on other people's houses should have meant that Jon could dedicate all his time to ours. Unfortunately, aside from the fact that illness knocked him out for a while, lockdown has meant we have not been able to order and fit the windows and bifolds, the bathroom tiles are stuck in Spain and any outside assistance we may have been considering to help Jon plaster is now out of the question.

So what have we (and when I say we, I mean Jon) managed to get done? Well, tying to get a straightforward answer from him at the moment is hard. He says he hates the house and doesn't want to talk about it on his 'downtime' as it eats into so much of his life already, and the amount of work required is depressing. From what I understand and could see, he has prepped the plumbing in the bathroom, plaster-boarded walls and ceilings and painted the bifold steel with bitumen paint to stop it rusting. As I am oblivious to how long things take, I definitely don't help Jon's house motivation. When he came home the other day and said he had been plaster-boarding, I innocently asked 'how many rooms did you do?' only to be met by an infuriated eye-roll!

Must learnt to keep my mouth shut!

Most important thing in the house - location of the cat-flap!