Supervision Duties

We have plumbers in this week finally converting our antiquated one pipe plumbing system into something that can work with a modern boiler. Sadly this means losing our wonderfully retro radiators.

They were due on Monday but have now deferred to Tuesday due to overrunning on a previous job which isn’t a promising start. L and I have split the supervision duties between us. I will do the first two days having been given permission to work from home.

What supervision duties turns out to mean is repeatedly shifting our ‘too much’ stuff from room to room to enable them to work.

The dogs love it. They have two extra people to kick balls for them and the Lad has all manner of new toys that he can run off with. He finds the material they use for pipe lagging particularly to his liking but he is also not adverse to running around with a screwdriver in his mouth.

Meanwhile I enjoy joining the ranks of WFH and actually get quite a lot of work done. The weather is nice enough to sit in garden on my laptop and I can take the boys on the park in the middle of the day.

Which goes something like this. I throw the ball for MD, MD gets the ball, MD drops the ball, the Lad picks up the ball, the Lad does laps of park with the ball, eventually I get the Lad to come to me, without the ball, pick up the Lad to stop him going back to the ball and walk to the ball, MD picks up the ball before I get there and moves it, I walk to the new location, I repeat this until MD stops moving the ball, then I pick up the ball, put down the Lad, throw the ball for MD. Repeat.

I surmise that there must be an easier way and find that having two balls is better because the Lad, despite trying, can't get both in his mouth at once. This worked fine until we lost one of the balls. At which point we went for strong coffee at Café 508. As I have my laptop with me, I can then also do some work while sitting outside the café. This is the life... sort of.

Back at home, both the boys fall asleep on the lawn, by their balls, and now I daren’t move. Problem is my laptop is almost flat and I need to put it on charge. Then the plumbers tell me that there will be no hot water tonight.

In the evening on Wednesday L is back at the Book Festival again, this time seeing Alison Weir and again I meet her afterwards in the Exeter.

(Wednesday 6^th June)