...in the bleedin' dark.

A week ago workmen came and dug the street up. There was an electrical fault, they said. It was important they do this immediately as the power could go at any minute. They excavated a trench five feet deep, exposing pipes and wires, the connective tissue of my house. But it had to be done, quickly, cleanly, decisively. 

Then they went home. 

And they didn't come back. 

They erected a little plastic fence around the exposed guts of my house and sodded off. The electric has been dropping out intermittently since then. 

"As long as the electric doesn't go on Thursday." 

Susan has been applying for a new job. Its been a gruelling exercise: she's had to run through hoops and has done so with extraordinary determination. There is a final piece of on-line training set for Thursday morning. She needs to do it or the last week's worth of vertiginous admin will have been for nothing. 

"As long as the electric doesn't go on Thursday."

We were woken by the sound of drilling. A man in hi viz came to the door. The electric was going on Thursday. "Sorry," he said, "did nobody tell you? Somebody was supposed to tell you." Nobody told us. The power was down for the whole of her training. She struggled through it with her phone and our land-fill printer, squinting at tiny graphics and busking the rest. She is incredible. I would have punched the computer, my phone, thought better of punching the builders, punched the wall, gone to A and E, caught Covid 19 and died. But I didn't have to because she is pragmatic and sensible. 

They've fucked off again. There is still a giant muddy trench outside the house. They'll probably come back with cement mixers, sledgehammers and angle-grinders on Monday. That's her birthday.