22nd July - Suburban Mama in flight...

I fully admit it, I am a big fat coward. A massive big pansy. It wasn't even a case of not being able to take the heat, it was a case of lifting up skirts and shrieking at lukewarm temperatures. Hence the fact, that I 'got out of the kitchen' (or empty hole that used to be a kitchen, argh!) and indeed, fled the whole house.

We survived Monday ok, the day that the builders started. Despite the fact that they announced that a) the architect's plans were wrong, b) we had a pipework system about as primitive as you can get. I.e - first man made fire, then he made the one-pipe system that we've got, and c) we had a huge gas leak that could potentially have finished us all off, if it had remained undetected.

It was when they started to rip up the lounge (the lounge! The lounge! My lovely, polished, finished lounge!) that I started to get skittish. When they moved into ripping up our bedroom (my bedroom! My bedroom! My lovely, polished, finished bedroom!) I felt rather a few too many palpitations and hot sweats coming on. When they moved into ripping up D's bedroom (his bedroom! His bedroom! Yes, you get the picture...) and I felt a full blown heart attack coming on, I started to doubt my sanity at remaining in the house. After all, we were now living in a house where I actually couldn't put D down anywhere and had to carry him at all times- not an easy task with the world's wriggliest little boy, screeching to be let down so he could crawl around in the filth below.

It came to a crunch when I opened the front door on Tuesday, and was greeted by a cloud of thick, viscious dust and about 5 sweaty builders, who looked as though they'd been working down a coal mine. I was then greeted with the BFG, huge hands on hips, towering over me without his usual look of reassuring calm on his face, telling me 'not to panic about the hole in the kitchen floor.' Substitute the word 'hole' for 'crater' and you're not far off.
'Should we move out for a bit?' I meekly asked.
'Yes.' was the resounding reply.

So I turned tail and fled, complete with wriggly son and exhausted husband, to the solace of the in laws.

Dare I ever return, is the question...