Two Days in August

What is going on in your head if three times on a Thursday you are convinced it is Sunday? I mean it’s funny, but also not. That’s three times you did something reliant on it being a weekend - like park on a single line - realised it was in fact a working day or were corrected, and then did something else based on your unshakeable belief that it was the weekend hours later? I’ve been joking about this for years now - possibly since Covid - but I wonder why it started. And why it’s stayed.

When we were queuing outside supermarkets and sweating through masks and mostly staying home, the week started to wobble. Its edges softened as many of us worked from the corners of kitchens or bedrooms; the commute faded and everything changed. Inhabiting the same space seven days a week will do that.

Then I started a job that involved getting up at 3am which further confused my bodyclock. Quite often on a Monday I would think we were nestling in midweek; by midweek I had given up on properly identifying where in the calendar we were. Existing on five hours sleep a night, like a poundshop Margaret Thatcher, will do that.

So when I left that job and became a full-time freelancer and full-time mother, I was pretty sure the rigid lines of a school week would soon lick me into shape. Mondays are PE, Tuesdays are choir after school. Friday is Friyay. I regret to inform you that that has not happened. If you ask me what kit my daughter has to take to school on any given day I can tell you. But if you ask me what day of the week it is, it may take a few guesses. Being a single parent will do that.

Or will it?

Maybe the week just isn’t as rigid as it was for lots of us anymore. Maybe as you get older and busier, you just don’t prioritise that information anymore? You prioritise different stuff? Can you confidently tell me what day it is today without checking? Or does it feel like every other day? I’d love to know.

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On Monday (I know because I checked my phone diary, ha!) a man came to insulate and board my teeny crawl-space loft. And if that’s the most midlife sentence you’ve ever read by me, you haven’t been paying attention. It was soul-crushingly expensive but I live in a 200 year old cottage with ceilings so low I can touch them and where it’s currently 32 degrees upstairs - at night. It’s also inexplicably freezing in winter so I thought insulation would help. Look, I’m trying to be a grown-up. He was recommended by a friend and was very efficient at answering questions, getting back to me and booking it in. And that counts for a lot. (Yes, Mr Carpenter Guy who came and quoted for fixing my front door and now doesn’t reply to my messages, I’m looking at you!) So on Monday morning at 7.45am the Loft Man knocked at my Broken Door. “Wasn’t sure you’d be up!” he beamed at me. Me, who got up at 3am for 5 years. I save that ammo for later in case I need it. But Loft Man is super-organised. He gets parking permits from me and then they unload all their lofty bits outside the door. “You need to get that door looked at!” he cheerfully informs me. It’s 7.50am and I have issued far too many weak smiles.

The thing about employing a builder or a plumber is that you just don’t know if it’s going to be a cascading nightmare of shit or if you’re going to strike gold. But the next thing he does answers that. He reaches into a plastic bag and says: “Could you put our lunch in your fridge please?” I look down and see several plastic pots of wholegrain salad, leaves and beetroot, a chicken wrap, a strawberry smoothie and several plastic pots of chopped up pineapple and melon. I know I sound like a Patronising Arse but I can’t stop myself. “Wow, this is very healthy.”

In the last year, I have employed plumbers, electricians, bricklayers, carpenters - to try to raise this 200 year old house from its filthy slumber. And every one of them ate (delicious but) unhealthy food. One arrived eating a Snickers and a doughnut, while sucking on a bottle of Lucozade; another threw his empty Burger King wrapper in a plant pot then asked for a tea with three sugars. Whatever gets you through, right? But Loft Man has a different ethos. “I keep my guys healthy, I buy their lunch. I don’t want them eating any crap.” I look at the two other guys - they do indeed look healthy and happy. Makes sense. But Loft Man wants to tell me more. He whips out his mobile. “If you think I’m healthy, you should see my mate. He worked in the city for 20 years and he was so overweight and unfit - now look at him!” He shows me a photo from his Whatsapp of a cover of Men’s Health magazine with said mate tensing his biceps and triceps and lots of other muscles I don’t know the name of, and positively smouldering into the camera. I’m a shallow person, an absolute sucker for a handsome face, so I do consider asking how old Magazine Man is, but for once I catch myself in time because the tiny loft needs to be filled with a thick layer of fluff and then boarded and it’s already 26 damn degrees.

Of course you can’t tell if a tradesperson is going to be good by what they eat, but maybe you can by how they treat their employees? Anyway, the loft job was finished quickly one hour ahead of schedule and he threw two free LED lights in. So I’m happy. It’s still too hot upstairs though. Shit.

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