Body parts going cheap, slight wear and tear

My dog just tried to catch a Lurcher. You have to admire her optimism seeing as she's a medium mongrel with a gammy leg who couldn't catch a hamster if it decided to run.

The result was fairly predictable: Tiggy was Wile E. Coyote to the lurcher's Road Runner. She's now sitting, defeated, in her basket now, perusing the latest Acme catalogue.

Poor dog hasn't had many walks this week with Pickle being sick off school. He is also sick *of* school but by the end of day two when he was jumping all over his sister instead of climbing into bed I was sick of him.
'I thought you were supposed to be really ill?' I demanded as he squealed at the top of his voice.
'I am ill, ' he insisted, putting on a none-too-convincing croak and doing those Puss In Boots eyes.

He went back to school the next day.

As he left, in moved the contractors and I was on full tea and coffee alert for the day. One chap was painting the front door in lovely black gloss: 'Now, that should dry in about 5 or 6 hours,' he told me as he washed his brushes at 5pm, 'so leave the door open for as long as possible or it'll stick'. 'Yeah, cool,' I replied. And it bloody was. Our evening's TV viewing consisted of 'Cold Feet' and 'A Touch of Frost' from under a large blanket.

Another guy was fitting shelving units in the hall and lounge, monstrously huge things they are too, which will pay back the painter nicely as they all need glossing, ha. However he's putting beading on using a nail gun so the dog and I look like we've both got tourettes, jumping and twitching helplessly each time he fires it.

A couple of blokes who have clearly each had a sense-of-smell bypass came to unblock the drains. We knew they were blocked because the downstairs loo decided to fill-and-stir rather than empty-and-flush last week, just before we had visitors for the weekend. Nice timing. I was treated to an intimate tour of my drains and sewers by the power of cctv and a suspiciously brown long cable and so saw for myself how next door's ivy is not only trying to knock down my fence but is also trying to crawl up my u-bends. The solution was fairly straightforward and the smell of the chemicals nicely masked the smell of the doodies and as a clever feature it also drained my bank account of all remaining new-house decorating-budget to pay for it!

Finally two landscaping experts rocked up to assess the muddy bog which is my back lawn thanks to some dodgy lawn-levelling by a former occupant. Somehow they managed to re-slope the sloping garden backwards so that with a bit more excavation we'd have a nice natural swimming pool to laze beside. Alternatively we could sell our kidneys to fund the five tonnes of top soil these chaps reckon we need to level it properly. Pass me the JCB someone.

So it was a bit like Picadilly Circus here, all to the strains of Radio 2 from the painter's little transistor and the occasional woof from the drain guy's Boxer dog. Today I am putting all my worldly goods on eBay to try to re-fill the coffers and I'm also going to attempt to claim the drain repair money back on the house insurance. I am not optimistic, given my recent luck I've more chance of catching a Lurcher.