normal life resumes...almost

I've had such a lovely week - lots of people have posted on the Living Etc forum or on the blog saying how much they like the house. And one of our neighbours ( who is a minor TV personality dontcha know) stopped me in the street to tell me the house was looking great too. 'It looks so clean...and white...and..' 'Not grey?' I finished, literal and helpful as ever. Thanks again to all - it really makes my day.

I have turned into a complete homebody. I don't think we've had a meal out since we moved downstairs on 14 March, which must be causing some consternation at every cafe within a mile radius of the house. I'm pretty sure I was singlehandedly keeping the Miso noodle bar on Petersham Road in business. We haven't been out in the evening either, except once when the parents in law stayed and my husband forced me out to the cinema ( all of 500 yards away..) The trouble is that now that we have a house fit for babysitters to enter I don't actually want to leave it.

Two very nice blokes turned up on Thursday to lay the tiled path to the front garden. First though they had to dig out layers of reinforced concrete and a superannuated flower bed full of slugs. Oh how the sound of the pneumatic drill took me back to last year. My daughter and I had to climb over the wall to get to the corner shop when I finally ran out of milk and gingernut biscuits. The next day they came back and poured a new layer of concrete over it and built a complicated bridge out of bits of board and old plank so that we could reach the street. Then they left again, with strict instructions not to walk on it until they came back. Naturally we have had torrential rain ever since and they can't come back and lay the actual tiles until it stops. Ahh well, it wouldn't be the Worst House without massive delays.

Speaking of which, at some point I am going to have to get the builder on the phone and try and make him come back and finish the bathroom and sort out the dog's breakfast they've made of putting the bath taps on. At the moment I just can't be bothered. It's so lovely to have the house to ourselves, and it's the school holidays so I want to be able to come and go to the park etc without coming home to find dirty footprints everywhere and some new problem created by the partial solution of the existing one.

We had a playdate here this afternoon and I made the mistake of letting the boys out into the garden to play Swingball. Note to self: wait until garden no longer resembles bowl of chocolate mousse strewn with boulders before letting two five year olds run amok therein. Locked them out on the decking to eat their Penguins and then spent 20 minutes sluicing the mud back with a yard broom and a watering can. All with a two year old pressed up against the glass doors clamouring to join them.

We do have a man coming to landscape the garden in a couple of weeks. I'm not entirely sure what he plans to do as it was all a bit vague, but his quote was half the price of the first one. As long as it includes reversing the greenery to mud ratio I'll be happy. (Am steeling myself to post some pictures of the semi-dereliction currently visible from our lovely new windows, rather than the nice careful ones excluding the garden....)