So, here I am, my last weekend in lockdown before I return to work next week. After this, I will be back to working at least one day at the weekend unless I’m on holiday, and once again will be trying to squeeze in writing my blog around long days working. Next week, I am working Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, so honestly have no idea when my blog will get written. Miss F is also returning to work next week and has been asked to work 5-10 on Friday, and 12-5 on Saturday.

The Saturday shift doesn’t present any problems as there is an 11:30am bus which will get her there in plenty of time, and as I finish work at 4:30pm I can drive straight out to pick her up. But I’m not quite sure how Friday is going to work. She is at college until 4:15 so will have to run as fast as she can the moment her class ends to try and make it to the bus station to catch the 4:30 bus. I can’t help her this week because I will be at work until 6pm. Also, I’m not sure when she’s going to eat. Luckily, she only has another couple of weeks at college before her exams will be over and she will be finished for this academic year and will be off until she goes to university in September.

Imagine that – over four months off over the summer with nothing to do but whatever takes your fancy? Yes, I’ve had nearly four months off work in lockdown, but I still had a lot to do every day. I’ve told her to enjoy it because this will probably be the last time ever in her life that she can simply kick back and do nothing.

Her exam is creeping ever closer. Gradually, she has been working her way through all her assignments, I believe there is only another two to hand in. These assignments are what her tutors will be grading her on, but Miss F is quietly confident. She has worked incredibly hard this past year under very strange and difficult circumstances, and it shows in the quality of her work. Plus, rather than take the Easter holidays off she chose to crack on with her assignments and get the bulk of them done so now she is well ahead of schedule.

I am proud of her for making that decision – and with no prompting from me. I’m not in any way a helicopter parent and have very much let her set her own pace and work schedule. I have provided an environment in which she can work with the turning of the small back bedroom into her own office space, and I have been very lenient when it comes to household chores. Yes, she does a little to help around the house and I do expect her to tidy up after herself, but to be honest, I would rather keep on top of the cleaning myself and have her get the grades she needs to go to university, than pile a long list of chores onto her.

You never know, hopefully, when I’m old and infirm she will remember this and look after me in my dotage. Well, I can hope…

Today (Saturday) Miss F has gone down to the park for a socially distanced picnic to meet with her friends. It’s been a hard year for most teenagers. Denied the socialisation that had been taken for granted, they’ve probably spent far more time at home with their parents than they would otherwise have. Maybe that is a good thing, who knows, but I’m guessing most young people are desperate for the world to open back up so they can spend time with their peers again. The weather today is sadly not picnic weather, but she has wrapped up warmly and has taken the plastic-lined picnic blanket to counteract the damp grass as there’s a very high possibility it’s going to rain later. They’re all going to take their own picnics so no sharing of food will occur, and I know they are sensible enough to stay apart.

As for me? I’m sitting here chatting to you guys and thinking about all the things I still need to get done before returning to work next Thursday. One thing I must do is try on my uniform just to make sure it still fits. I’m pretty sure the top will as it’s a little on the large side and I don’t feel I’ve put any weight on up top. But I’ve been living in baggy, comfy old jeans since Christmas – and they would have me believe all is well in the kingdom – but all the same, I’d better check. In the worst-case scenario of buttons not doing up I still have time to buy another, slightly larger, pair.

There’s nothing like a deadline to focus the attention and make you whizz through your to-do list. My website is almost complete – a few last-minute tweaks and I will be ready to unveil it in all its glorious, technicolour splendour – so at least that will be one thing achieved. I have written a book – Kiss & Tell – book four in the Blackwood Family Saga. It has been edited, beta read, formatted, uploaded to KDP, and the proof copy received. All I must do now is read it all the way through to try and spot any last-minute snags. There is a lot to do when launching a book, so Sunday and Monday are earmarked to get as prepared as I possibly can, whilst getting completely up to date with all the laundry and ironing.

Tuesday has been designated a self-care day. There is a box of hair dye that has been sitting in the cupboard since Christmas; I have face and hair packs ready to deploy; a brand-new shaver ready for a mammoth deforestation project, and a manicure and pedicure will be attempted.

Wednesday, I need to sort out meals for the following three days I will be at work. It was bad enough getting home from work at 5pm tired, hungry, and with no clue what to cook for dinner. It’s going to be even worse now I won’t be getting home until gone 6pm, and I have a feeling the first week or so are going to come hard. Physically, I’ve got used to a gentler, slower pace of life. My body has adapted to eight hours of sleep each night and more time during the day for resting, it’s going to be a shock to the system going back to getting by on six hours of sleep a night and being on the go all day with no time to draw breath, let along sit down and rest. Ah well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I must work to pay the mortgage and the bills, so that’s that.

Those of you who read last week’s blog will know I finally gave up on the cumbersome and next to worthless VAX vacuum cleaner I had and splurged out on a new Henry Hoover. He is performing excellently, thank you for all the enquiries, but that meant I was left with the old vacuum standing about the house like a mournful ghost. I also had the old printer to get rid of, a bag of Miss F’s clothes and shoes which were now surplus to requirement, a cracked plastic storage box that’s been sitting in the garden all year, and a length of metal that came with her new bed a couple of years ago but was the wrong size, so they had to send a new piece. What to do? I wanted them gone from the house – not having a garage or a shed to store miscellaneous stuff in means rubbish is seriously in the way.

Anyway, after writing my blog last Saturday, I went online and did the week’s grocery shopping at Tesco and grabbed the next available collection slot which was 12-1 on Wednesday. I had been told that you now must book an appointment to take rubbish to the recycling centre, but that it was easy to do. So, I investigated the website, and it was easy, really, easy. I put in my car’s make, colour, and registration number then looked at the available timeslots and picked one. The next available slot was 12:00-12:15 on Thursday so I booked it. Then sat there and thought about things. Hmmm. I went back onto the Tesco site. Could I change my collection time from 12-1 on Wednesday to 12-1 on Thursday? Yes, I could, so I did. Finally, I telephoned my surgery and booked to collect the repeat prescription of my hayfever meds Thursday lunchtime and felt well-satisfied with my organisational skills.

Thursday dawned. I realised it was also my niece’s birthday so popped £20 in a card and was going to put it through the door of her grandparents because I knew as their carer, she was there almost every day. I had carefully estimated how long I thought everything was going to take and set off at 11:35am precisely. First stop, the card through the letterbox. Then I drove to my surgery. A bit shocked when I got there to discover there was a fun game of “How many old people can you get in a car park in one go?” taking place. I pulled into the road leading to the small business park where the surgery is located, and it was chaos! Cars everywhere, trying to park, parking very badly and straddling two spaces, or cars just pulling up in the middle of the road to disgorge elderly people who took forever to climb out and totter unsteadily across the car park. In the end, I illegally parked in the spaces designated to the dance studio opposite. Big signs warned that clamping was in operation, but given the studio was shut due to lockdown and I was up against the clock, I decided to risk it.

There was a never-ending queue of oldies at the surgery door, and I suddenly realised they must all be there for their second jabs. I had to go through the same door to get to the separate pharmacy, so shamelessly queue jumped and marched straight to the door where a rather large and hatchet-faced lady had planted herself in the opening and was glaring at me with a “you shall not pass” expression. Excuse me, I said, very politely. I’m not going to the surgery, I need to get to the pharmacy, so could you possibly step out of the way? She stared at me over her mask and for a moment I thought she was going to give me trouble. I raised my eyebrows and coughed, very loudly. She moved. I slipped by and into the pharmacy, grabbed my prescription and a minute later was back out to find her still there, right in the middle of the doorway. We looked at each other over our masks – don’t make me cough again, missus, because I will – but then she moved and I was back in the car which thankfully hadn’t been clamped, and I was off on the next stage of my quest.

I’d never been to the new recycling centre but had been told it was a doddle to find, and it was. It was now 11:55am so I was spot on for my midday appointment and joined the queue of cars waiting to go in. A little guy was perched on a folding stool in a mask looking very officious with a clipboard and pen. He was peering at each car and ticking them off on his list. I wondered if anyone ever had the audacity to turn up without a booking, what level of authority he had to deal with them. I mean, if you’d said your car was green but he felt it was bluer, would you be turned away?

Luckily, my car passed inspection and as soon as I saw another car pull out of one of the docking bays I drove forward and reversed into it. I had to chuck the vacuum and the printer into the same ‘small appliances’ skip which looked like it had not long been emptied. Oh, the satisfaction of carrying them up the steps and then heaving them over the side to hear them smash down below. Very cathartic. The other few things were quickly disposed of and then I was back in the car and heading into town.

A glance at the clock, it was 12:15pm. My grocery slot was until 1pm so I had time for the next part of the quest. At the end of January, my old Nokia phone finally gave up the ghost at about the same time it ran out of credit. It wasn’t worth doing anything then because I was always home so if anyone wanted to get hold of me, they could call the landline, email, or message me through social media. But now I would be going back to work and driving out on country lanes at night to pick up Miss F, so I figured it was sensible to get a new phone.

I parked outside the front of Tesco’s and joined the queue waiting to get in. I had hoped there would be no one in the tiny mobile phone shop at the front of the store, but there was a Tesco’s employee discussing phones with the staff member on duty. He was thinking long and hard about which phone to go for and took an absolute age debating the pros and cons of every single phone they sold until I was ready to scream with frustration. They could both see me standing there. Yes, I know he was technically a customer, but he was a Tesco employee so surely, I took precedence over him? Twenty minutes ticked by; I could see my shopping being taken back to the store if I didn’t get a move on; and in the end, sheer desperation forced me to do something I would never normally do.

I butted in.

Yes, I stepped forward and interrupted them. Starting by saying ‘I’m really sorry’ a couple of hundred times, I politely explained my predicament. That my click and collect slot expired at 1pm, it was now fifteen minutes until that time and was really sorry but I only wanted to buy a phone – THAT phone – I pointed to the one I’d selected in the twenty minutes they’d been faffing about. That was all I needed, just to buy that phone, and I didn’t want to have to go through the whole rigmarole of having to try and come back into the store with a car full of frozen stuff that I needed to get home.

The customer was nice about it. Sure, he said, no problem. He wanted to think some more about it anyway. But the actual staff member was very unpleasant. Glaring at me over the mask that kept slipping down under her nose, she icily informed me that even though he was a member of Tesco’s he was STILL a customer, whom she was currently serving, I would simply have to wait. Fine, I said, and put my purse back into my bag, I’ll get a phone elsewhere and stop using the Tesco mobile phone service, because I seriously didn’t have the time to wait any longer, nor did I want to hang around in a crowded shop for a minute longer than I had to. At that point, the other customer pointedly told the staff member again that it was really, honestly, absolutely fine if she served me, while he looked at the options again.

Glaring daggers at me, she got the phone I wanted from the locked cupboard, snappily confirmed that yes, the sim card from my current phone would fit and yes, I could use my Clubcard vouchers to pay for some of it, rang it through and gave me the phone. The whole transaction took three minutes – half the time it had taken her to tell me I would have to wait – and then I was out, back in the car, and hurtling over to the collection spot with ten minutes to spare. Leaving it almost to the very end of the time slot meant everyone else had already collected all their shopping so I didn’t have to queue at all – note to self, maybe do this in future – and I was home and unpacking all the shopping by 1pm, congratulating myself on for once not only knowing where all my ducks were but successfully lining them up in a row.

I like my new phone, but Miss F laughed at it and called it names. It’s a farmer’s phone, she said. It’s a flip-top one so at least I’ll no longer pocket or handbag dial people, and according to Miss F that’s the type of phone farmers use so they don’t get pig shit on the screen. Okay, I don’t care. She also says it’s an old person’s phone because of the size of the buttons. Well, I am old, and I’m tired of peering at tiny buttons and saying the wrong thing. All I care about is that it cost me £30, I got £30 of credit with it, it works, it’s sturdy and reliable, and it still fits into my pocket.

I neither want nor need a smartphone so it would be a waste of money buying myself one, and besides, they’re so big! I just want a little phone I can carry with me for emergency calls and the odd text, and that’s it, that’s all I need. I don’t care about status symbols, or how trendy something is. I want what I want, and so long as something is practical and suits my needs, I honestly couldn’t give a pair of fetid dingo’s kidneys about how it looks or what other people think of me. More fool them for spending hundreds of pounds, I’m happy with my £30 bargain basement phone because you know what, if I drop this phone on the floor, it will bounce – can you say the same about your phone?

Rummaging around in the freezer earlier in the week, I discovered a lone bag of cherries leftover from last summer’s harvest. Now, most people would probably have made a cherry pie. Me? Well, I put a bottle of vodka on the shopping list and last night made a bottle of cherry vodka to drink in the summer. Lockdown liqueur, it will be a memento of the strange start to the year and hopefully, we’ll be able to drink to better things and a brighter and more hopeful future.

Take care, my friends, and I hope you have a great week. If, like me, you are emerging from lockdown, blinking in the light, and anxiously worrying about life, the universe and everything, then stay safe and stay away from idiots.

There will be a blog next week, I promise. I’m not sure how and when I will write it, but one will be written, so until then, cheers.

Julia Blake

It’s Easter Sunday – yet another one spent in lockdown here in the UK. For everyone for whom Easter means something, I wish you peace and contentment. To everyone else, enjoy the long weekend and try not to overdose on chocolate. I asked Miss F if she would like me to buy her a lactose-free Easter egg this year? She thought about it, then announced she’d rather I buy her a new mouse for her laptop because her old one was on the way out. I shrugged, she sent me the Amazon link, I bought it for her, and that was that. Although I am cooking one of her favourite meals tonight – barbecued pork belly with fat chips. Everyone is now aware that Miss F can’t eat dairy, luckily, so she received very nice vegan Easter eggs from my brother and her godmother. My parents bought her the black enamel cookie tin off her university wish list, which she was grateful for. It’s a very large cookie tin, which is probably a good indication of her anticipated university diet.

She didn’t buy me chocolate either. To be honest, I don’t have a particularly sweet tooth and chocolate can make my slightly lactose intolerant system quite ill, so instead, she bought me a very interesting book which I’d never heard of and I’m looking forward to reading it. And that’s it as far as Easter goes for us.

I have finally received my back to work date and will be returning to work on the 15^th of April. Whilst we’ve been in lockdown our pay structure and working hours have changed, in that yes – we have received a pay rise to finally bring our hourly pay up to the minimum for the UK. I was receiving less per hour than my 16-year-old daughter and it was only my commission on top that made it bearable. But, to balance this they are now no longer giving me a paid 20-minute lunch break, but instead are forcing me to take an unpaid hour-long break in the middle of my shift. There’s nothing I can do about this, but it is a real pain in the arse as it means that instead of getting home from work soon after five every evening, I won’t be getting home until after six.

Twenty minutes used to suit me just fine. It was long enough to eat my lunch and read a few pages on my kindle, which is all I needed. But now I will be wasting a whole hour of my day that I won’t be paid for. I will have to sit in a tiny, smelly kitchen for an hour in which I could be doing other things – like being at home. And before anyone asks, no, I can’t go home in that hour. It’s a good fifteen-to-twenty-minute drive – possibly more if the traffic and the lights are against me – so by the time I got home, I’d have about fifteen minutes and it would be time to go back to work (panicking the whole time I’m going to be late).

I’m stuck on an industrial and retail park, so there is nothing there to do but go shopping, which I don’t want to do. There is a park about a ten-minute drive away, but bear in mind I’ll be in my work shoes and uniform, so don’t want to be trouncing around a muddy park. I guess the company must claw back our pay increase somehow, so no longer giving me a paid twenty-minute break is one way of doing it. The full-time workers are losing their hour-long paid lunch break and are having to work an extra hour as well to make up for it, so I’m fortunate compared to them. There’s nothing to be done about it, it is what it is, so I just have to suck it up, but still, it’s annoying.

Talking about annoying, I have had to buy yet another vacuum cleaner this week. This will be the fourth one we’ve had over the past two years, so I hope we’ve got it right this time. Up until two years ago, we had a beast of a VAX. It was a carpet shampooer as well as a vacuum cleaner and it was okay – in shampooer mode, it couldn’t be faulted, but let’s be honest, how often does the normal person shampoo their carpets? As a vacuum, it was very big, heavy, and cumbersome. Storing it was a nightmare – Victorian houses are not known for having ample storage – so I had to try to keep it in the same cupboard where I kept the ironing board and the bin, which meant pulling everything out and hauling the beast out every time I needed to vacuum. Miss F hated it and refused to use it, claiming it was too heavy for her and just too awkward to get out of the cupboard.

For my birthday in 2019, my parents bought me one of those little light vacuum cleaners that weigh practically nothing and are easy to use. They took the VAX and stored it in their garage for whenever anyone in the family wished to shampoo their carpets. Miss F loved the new vacuum and quite happily used it – but we are a very hairy household. What with both Miss F and I having long hair, the cat, and the occasional lodger, this is a home that is in permanent moult. After about seven months the little vacuum cleaner literally fell apart and I knew I had to buy something with a bit more guts.

I looked on Argos, I was drawn to VAX again simply because they are such an established brand and I hadn’t had any problems with my old VAX, other than the fact it was the wrong shape and was too heavy. I picked one that claimed to be able to cope with hair no problem, it was an upright so storage would be easier, and the reviews were good. At £99 it wasn’t a bad price, so I bought it, it came about a week later, and for a while everything was fine.

Then problems began to creep in. For a start, it was one of those bagless things and I have always had mixed views about those. Sure, it means you don’t have to empty the bag and there shouldn’t be any loss of suction, but the ones I’ve had experience with seem to need emptying a lot more times than traditional bag vacuums, and they are a great deal messier to empty. With a bag vacuum, you open the top, carefully lift out the bag, dump it in the bin, insert a new bag, and Bob’s your uncle. But with a bagless thing it always seemed to involve having to get your hands inside the cylinder to yank out the clogged dust and hair, and sometimes even involved the use of skewers to try and hook out stubborn clumps. All of which is a very messy and dirty enterprise, leaving hands filthy and usually dust everywhere.

The new VAX had a tiny dust chamber that needed emptying every single time I went to use it, so that was annoying. Then it was incredibly heavy again, so heavy that again Miss F refused to use it – claiming it hurt her back to do so. It also had a really, really, really, long cable, which sounds like it should be a good thing, but wasn’t. It got tangled onto everything, pulling over chairs and tying in big knots under and around things, so I was forever on my hands and knees trying to unknot the wretched thing.

Finally, it couldn’t cope with the sheer amount of hair it was being asked to deal with. Neither Miss F nor I have had a haircut in over a year. We have a lot of hair! This hair falls onto the carpet and then the vacuum cleaner – which is supposed to have been designed with this purpose in mind – struggled to suck it up properly. Instead, it got snagged all around the roller and proved impossible to remove. The head is a sealed unit, you can’t get to the roller inside, so the hair built up and up until finally the roller wouldn’t turn at all so the suck rate of the vacuum cleaner tanked, until, honestly, I could suck harder than the wretched thing.

In vain, I tried poking scissors and skewers through the tiny opening trying to unclog it but couldn’t remove enough to make a difference. Although, it would periodically barf up great clumps of hair every time I vacuumed, which was fun. It got so bad, that I would have a run over the carpet with the vacuum first, then would have to get down on my hands and knees with a brush and dustpan to do the rest.

Great, £99 spent to have to clean my carpet the way a Victorian housemaid did! So not what I wanted. In the end, I was grumpily forced to admit that the vacuum was only suitable for someone bald, whose entire family was bald, any visitors they had were bald, and they owned a Sphinx cat. The breaking point was reached on Thursday when I was trying to vacuum the stairs, there was a weird whistling sound from deep inside it and what little suction was left abruptly ceased. Back onto the Argos website, I went, and this time did what I should have done in the first place and spent the extra money on buying a good old reliable Henry hoover. It has a large capacity bag and is cordless. Hundreds of five-star reviews that raved about it, plus I have used Henry’s in the past – they are wonderful, sturdy, and hardworking.

At the same time, I ordered us a new printer as ours stopped working a couple of months ago and no amount of changing the fuse or unplugging and plugging it back in again, would even get the lights to come on, plus a new chair to go in the lodger’s room. I had an old desk in the corner of my bedroom which wasn’t being used, so that got moved down to the basement, the wicker armchair that was in the basement got moved up to my bedroom instead, and, with the addition of the smart new grey office chair, any future lodger now has a great workspace.

They were all scheduled to be delivered on Saturday – any time between 7am and 8pm, gee thanks, Argos – so I made sure I was up and showered by 7am and waiting. It wasn’t too bad, a big white van pulled up and the doorbell went at 9:30am, and by the time I opened the door two big parcels were standing on the doorstep – the chair and Henry – and the driver was climbing back into his cab to drive away. I dashed out into the street and waved at him. He looked petrified but cautiously wound down his window.

HIM: Yes? Yes?

ME:  You’ve only delivered two parcels, there should be three.

HIM: No, no, only two.

ME:  No, there should be a printer as well. It’s on the same order.

HIM: I don’t know, it’s not on the list. Maybe later. Sorry. Goodbye.

ME:  But wait, couldn’t you check…

It was no use, he was gone. But as he pulled away at speed, I saw his number plate. It was him! The infamous Yodel delivery driver who smashed into the side of my car at the end of January and drove away without stopping. For those who haven’t read my blog since then, I did manage to get his number plate when he tried to stealthily deliver to my neighbour early one Sunday morning, so the insurance claim has been sorted and my car fixed, but I’m betting he thought I was chasing after him to have a go at him about it.

So, I had to try and telephone Argos to discover where the printer was and when it was going to be delivered if indeed, it was coming at all. They have been known to simply cancel part of any order due to stock issues with no prior warning to the customer. It took a good thirty minutes of hanging on the phone, listening to dodgy “shopping made easy” muzak, and then repeatedly bellowing my order number to a stupid bot who kept cheerily informing me that they – hadn’t quite got that and please could I repeat it – until I was grinding my teeth in frustrated rage. Why is everything so niggly and annoying and just a downright pain in the arse these days? Anyway, I finally got through to the lovely Lucy, who had a look on her system and perkily reassured me that the printer was coming sometime that day and that I was not to worry.

Why didn’t they deliver the whole order in one go, as they were supposed to, and why, if that was impossible for some reason, didn’t they simply email or text me to let me know that the rest of my order would be coming later? Instead of sending me a Yodel delivery satisfaction survey to complete – hmmm – so it looked like what I received was all I was getting.

I wonder which delivery driver will come back with the printer. I wonder if it will be him. That would be interesting. Should I say something? Or is there no point? Once upon a time, I would have gone out there all guns blazing, but the older I get, the less I can be arsed with confrontation, because, really, what purpose will it serve? At the end of it, the Yodel delivery driver won’t be any less of a cockwomble, he won’t have a “road to Damascus” moment and become a better person merely because a pissed-off middle-aged woman has had a moan at him.

Anyway, as I said, the clock is now counting down to an end to my lovely long time at home. Over the past year, I have spent almost eight months of it at home, which, I’m not going to lie, has been wonderful. Not once have I been bored or frustrated, and not once have I suffered from cabin fever. Maybe it’s because I have so much to fill my days with that there simply hasn’t been time to be bored. My to-do list is still so long, I could do with another eight months off to catch up on all I want to do – but that’s not going to happen. The death and infection rates are radically dropping here in the UK, so unless something happens, I cannot see us ever going back into lockdown. No, I think this weird period of history is over – at least for the UK, although I know many other countries are going back into quarantine because they haven’t been maybe as efficient as us at vaccinating their population.

Finally, I do have the wonderful news that after two months of being blocked from it, I got my original Instagram account back. To be honest, I had given up on it, but I needed to decide which Instagram account I was going to tag on my new website and in the front of my books so decided to have one last try and was stunned when I was let back in. So now I have two Instagram accounts. My main account and my back-up one, I’m trying to encourage people to follow me on both as I don’t want to give up the second account – after all, Instagram giveth and it taketh away – but neither do I have the time to run both full-time.

Additional update: the printer has been delivered, by a lady Yodel delivery driver this time, so, no confrontation needed. Also, we have had a panic-stricken ten minutes because when I went to save this blog, Word put up the blue spinning doughnut of death, then gave a hiccup and I lost the whole lot into the fifth dimension, or the nether regions, or wherever it is unsaved documents disappear to. I was gutted, it had taken almost two hours to write it and of course, I hadn’t saved it yet, and I couldn’t remember what I’d said – something about vacuum cleaners and lunch hours? Shaking with panic, I went to ask the IT Department, who was cooking her lunch and not best pleased at being interrupted.

Anyway, after a few minutes of searching through the computer, she crossly ordered me to go away because apparently me heavy breathing over her shoulder was annoying her. I skulked off to the kitchen to make myself a coffee and a sandwich, desperately hoping that somehow, she could perform a techie miracle and find it for me and cursing my own stupidity for not saving it. I’d no sooner finished making a ham salad sarnie and a cup of frothy coffee when she called me back. She’d managed to recover 90% of it and saved it for me and my gratitude was boundless. I’m cooking meatballs for dinner, so that might go some small way to saying thank you.

So that was my week. I really don’t know how I’ve managed to write so much, when very little has happened. Enjoy your long weekend, if you get one, and I hope you have a calm and restful week.

Look forward to chatting with you next Sunday.

Julia Blake

To everyone in the UK, Happy Mother’s Day. To everyone else, Happy Sunday, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Firstly, an apology for not blogging last week. That weird head cold thing and general feeling of ickiness I was suffering from the last time we spoke developed into a very nasty infection under my back molar. By the following Wednesday, the pain was creeping into my jaw, throat, and ear, and by Friday I’d spoken to the dentist, picked up a prescription for two sets of live antibiotics, and had picked up the meds from my doctor when I went to collect my hayfever meds.

What a lot of people don’t realise, is 95% of all antibiotics are inert, but 5% – the strong stuff – are live. The thing with being on live antibiotics is yes, they are very effective and very fast working, but they also have their own side effects. One of them is that not even a whiff of alcohol must pass your lips or else you will be as sick as a dog. The other is that they strip all the bacteria from your body – good and bad – the antibiotics make no distinction between them but kills them all.

Now, there is only one way for all the dead bacteria to leave your body, but I will leave that one to your imagination. This means that you must take a lot of probiotics to put the good bacteria back into your body. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem for me, but as I have become quite lactose intolerant over the past year and probiotics are dairy, I was worried this might further add to my misery. Luckily, I found dairy free probiotics in Waitrose so that was all right. Yes, they tasted foul, but I chugged down a pot twice a day and hoped they were doing the trick.

So, by the time last Saturday rolled around and it was time to write my blog, the meds hadn’t yet kicked in and I was in a lot of pain. The tooth was wobbly in my jaw causing shooting pains to go down my throat – which was swollen – deep in my ear canal and even up into my temple. I was cross, tired, and very out of sorts. I’m afraid writing the blog just wasn’t going to happen. All I wanted to do was rest, so that’s what I did.

Since then, I’m happy to report that the meds seem to have done the trick. I was given only enough for five days and wondered if I’d need a repeat prescription, but so far so good. This is the third time I’ve suffered the same infection in the same place. I think this time the fact I was able to spot the warning signs early and get myself onto the antibiotics, meant it was dealt with quicker. I just hope it doesn’t come back again as my dentist was making noises about removing the tooth and I’m not keen on the idea.

It’s been a fortnight of slowly getting things back onto an even keel, and generally just good news all around. Firstly, my car is fixed. The insurance company coughed up the money, only holding back the £100 policy excess which apparently will be refunded to me once the money has been fully claimed from the Yodel delivery driver’s insurance company. I have seen him in my road a further two times since, both times delivering to neighbours, so he’s clearly still working for Yodel. Each time he has driven past my house staring at it and scanning the parked cars – maybe realising that the car he smashed into is not there.

The garage telephoned me Tuesday to say the car was ready. Now, normally, I would have asked my dad to give me a lift there, but since Miss F is now back at college (more about that later) and is being exposed to the infection, we weren’t comfortable about risking it. I decided there was nothing for it, I would have to walk the two miles to retrieve it and planned to go Wednesday.

Wednesday dawned, torrential rain that lashed at the windows and didn’t let up all day, plus strong gusting winds. I wasn’t going out in that! Especially not as I was still recovering from a jaw and ear infection. Thursday, I had to go to the post office and the bank – I had some cash that’s been kicking around the house since the first lockdown and wanted to use it to help pay for the car, but wasn’t sure if the garage were accepting cash, so had decided to pay it into the bank. I left the bank at 11:13am and looked at the weather. The forecast had said rain all day but at that time in the morning it was dry and bright, although the gale force winds were still gusting. I made the snap decision to go there and then to fetch the car. After all, I was surely about a third of the way there already. So, I set out walking.

I walked, and I walked, and I walked. By the time I was about two-thirds of the way there – and too far to even think about coming back – I had remembered just how much I hate walking and I was exhausted. The wind had taken on a raw edge and was blasting straight into my ear. My legs ached and I needed to pee, but I had to keep going.

Eventually, I reached the garage and there was my little car! With a brand-new wing, looking ever so dapper. They had warned me that they might not be able to match the paint colour exactly, but if there is a difference, I can’t see it. Delighted, I paid the bill and drove home, very happy to have my little car back.

It’s lucky we were in lockdown and I didn’t need a car to get to work. My garage is opposite my place of work and I have sometimes wondered if in the warmer months I might be able to occasionally walk to work. My experience this week has shown me that no I couldn’t. It’s just too far. Sorry if that makes me sound a right weakling, but the thought of doing an hour’s walk and arriving at work drenched in sweat and exhausted. Then having to do a seven-hour shift on my feet all day, and then having to walk an hour back home – nope, just nope.

So, Basil my dear little car is safely home. Although, I have decided I will always try to park him with the mended side facing safely into the kerb. With the way that Yodel delivery driver has been bombing up and down our road, if he does decide to smash into me again – at least it will be the old, rusty side.

As you know, my insurance policy was up for renewal last week and I had determined not to use the same broker because they hadn’t been particularly efficient with my claim. However, when the quote arrived from them, I had to put my glasses on to check I wasn’t reading it wrong. Then I called Miss F into the room.

ME:  Look at this.

HER: What is it?

ME:  The quote from the insurance brokers for this year’s car insurance.

HER: You’re not using them this year, right?

ME:  Take a look.

She looked, her eyebrows shot up and she took another look.

HER: So, I guess we’re staying with them after all, then?

I had been expecting my premiums to go up after all the shenanigans. I had been warned they probably would. I was paying £16 per month for my insurance. Thirty years accident-free driving, an unblemished no claims bonus, my age, the age of my car, and the fact I drive less than 2000 miles a year all combining to keep my premiums low. But I was still expecting a few pounds to have crept onto the quote.

The quote was for £14.54 per month! That’s fully comprehensive, including homestart, breakdown recovery, courtesy car, windshield, foreign travel, and legal. I honestly don’t think I could get cheaper anywhere else, so I’m staying with the brokers. The underwriters are still the lovely company who were very efficient and honest with me, so there’s that.

Having my car back meant I was able to go online and place our first Tesco click and collect order since the last week of January. Such a relief. Yes, we had managed to get one delivery slot where we bulk bought as much as we could and living in the middle of town meant I was able to shop on foot. But there is a limit to how much I can carry in one go – let’s face it, milk, cat food, a bale of toilet rolls and a carton of juice and that’s me done!

Delivery slots to have your groceries brought to your door have to be booked a month in advance but click and collect slots are freely available. I went online Thursday afternoon and managed to book a slot for 3pm Saturday afternoon, and then Friday we sat down and took an hour placing a large and very comprehensive shopping list. Now all I must do is drive to our local Tesco, go to the collection spot in the car park, open my boot and pile the shopping in. It’s so easy and avoids having to go into a plague infested supermarket where people’s masks are more off than on and they seriously don’t understand how far apart 2m really is!

More good news re Miss F and her exams. The actual written portion of the exams have been cancelled and tutors will be awarding grades based on assignments completed by the students. As Miss F has worked very hard and kept on top of her assignments, scoring merits and distinctions all the way, she is quietly confident about the outcome of this.

The practical synoptic which makes up 60% of the final mark was causing her stress as they were scheduled to commence the week they returned to college (so, this week), but no preparation had been done for them and the tutors had no clue as to what was happening about them. The good news is that although the synoptics are still going ahead, they have been postponed to about six weeks in the future, so the students have some time to prepare for them, plus I believe they won’t be as intense as last year’s – maybe acknowledging the fact that the students have not received the level and quality of education this last year that they should have had.

Miss F returned to college on Monday. She was very worried about going. Not so much for her own safety, but in case she carries the contagion home to me. We are taking every precaution. She has good quality masks that she wears from the moment she leaves home to moment she returns. She has lots of hand sanitiser in her bag that she uses frequently. There isn’t much in the way of social distancing at the college, and students are being crammed into small classrooms sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with their classmates. But Miss F and her best friend Miss T are sticking closely together and not mingling or mixing with any of the other students. We know that Miss T has been obeying lockdown laws, and of course, Miss F has, so there’s minimal chance of them already being infected. They go to college, have their classes, then go directly home.

Sadly, most of the young people at the college are not being so sensible. Huge crowds of them are gathering outside the college at break and lunchtimes. There is nowhere open in the college for them to eat lunch, so they are all piling onto the large grassy area outside. No masks, no social distancing. It will be interesting to see what happens to infection rates, and even death rates, over the next two weeks.

Finally, on the good news front, I am delighted to report that I have finished writing book twelve! Yep, I started writing it on the 22^nd of February and sixteen days later I wrote the end. I did my usual tunnel vision, being so completely absorbed in the story I was telling that everything else went to pot. When I lifted my head from the book and looked around, it was to find my garden was a mess; the cupboards, fridge, and freezer were all empty; the house was a tip; and my poor daughter was beginning to think she was an orphan.

It’s always the way with me. I’m such a binge writer in that I don’t write a word for months, then bam, 52,000 words pour out of me in two weeks. Still, it’s written and I’m very pleased with it. Book four in the Blackwood Family Saga, this is the story of the mysterious and kickass character Isabella. If you’ve read the first three books in the series, you’ll know that Isabella is a law unto herself. In Sugar & Spice, Sullivan hazarded a guess that she was MI5 or MI6, or maybe something else. Well, in this book all her secrets are exposed, and the resulting tale is a non-stop exciting chase through the world of international drug smuggling, kidnapping, and revenge. Moving from the streets of London to the alleys of Kandahar, Isabella must fight for her life – even though her heart may be broken in the process.

I edited as I went – yes, I know I’m not supposed to, but I do – I also formatted as I went. This is the fourth book in the series, so how it’s going to be presented is already dictated by the previous three books. It made sense to insert it into the template right from the get-go. I have done two further line-by-line read throughs and now it is sitting and stewing for a few days. Then I’ll run it through the Grammerly editing programme to see if I missed anything and will make use of the read-back facility on my laptop – whereby it will read the story back to me and I will be able to hear how it flows. This is a wonderful way of catching those hard-to-spot typos and any grammatical errors. After that, it will be off to my wonderful beta reader, and then publication.

I can’t believe that will be twelve books out there. I’m hoping to get a chance to write a good-sized chunk of book thirteen before lockdown ends in mid-April, but we’ll see how timing goes. I’ve already decided I will write the third book of the The Perennials Trilogy next and as that’s going to be a big book, having words down already will give me the impetus to continue writing even once I’m back into the madness of work.

Whilst book twelve is stewing, I must work on my website. I’ve been faffing about with it over the past month, but because my attention has been solely focused on writing I haven’t been giving it the attention I should be. But now I must, the Adorable Andrew – the clever chap who is working on it for me – has been pressuring me to send him the material I want included, and now I have no more excuses. It must be done, and it will be. I’ll just go tunnel vision on it in my normal way and will probably get it completed within the week.

Today is Mother’s Day – or Mothering Sunday as it should properly be called – here in the UK. A centuries old tradition, it dates to when young people left home at an early age and went away to work. Most went into service – being servants for the local gentry – and some worked the land. Once a year, on the second Sunday of March, there was a special service held in all churches across the land. Everyone was given leave to return to their “mother” church if it was possible, to celebrate their connection with the place of their birth and the church that had nurtured them. Initially, it had nothing to do with their actual mothers, but instead was all about their mother church.

Gradually, though, as this visit home would also allow the young people to be able to see their own mothers, the concepts became combined, and it was traditional to take a small posy of primroses to your mother on that Sunday as a little gift of appreciation.

Nowadays, of course, it has become ALL about your mother and nothing to do with the church, and cards and gifts are a lot more elaborate than a simple posy of wildflowers. All around the world, other nations copied and initiated their own Mother’s Days. But as these weren’t ecclesiastical events there was no obligation to stick to the British date, so every country chose which date suited them best.

I have bought plants for my mother and for my ex-mother-in-law – Miss F’s grandma – along with cards. My father made a doorstep delivery of wood on Saturday afternoon, so was able to take my mum’s card and plant away with him. The card and plant for Grandma we will doorstep deliver on Sunday. As she is bedbound and cannot come to the door, the only way we will be able to see her is through the window. But it’s better than nothing, and hopefully will brighten her day.

There is a real sense this week of things looking up and chores being ticked off my to-do list. Pleased beyond belief I have at least achieved one of the tasks I set for myself this lockdown – that of writing book twelve – if I can only get the other task completed and relaunch my new website before returning to work, at least I will feel I spent the time profitably.

Anyway, that’s all my news for this week. Take care of yourselves and try to stay safe. The vaccine is rolling out across the UK and they are working their way down through the ages. They had reached the high 50s this week, so at 53 my turn may be coming up sooner than I expected.

Chat soon.

Julia Blake

Isn’t it funny how life can turn on a tuppence? When we spoke last week, it was looking as though I would have to forget about going the insurance path and simply pay to get my car fixed myself. It seemed the only way I could keep my car, my spotless insurance record, and avoid my premiums going up unnecessarily.

But fate is a fickle creature. I awoke early last Sunday morning and for some reason was desperate to have a cup of tea straight away. This is a deviation from my normal routine of shower then tea, but I thought it’s Sunday, so what does it matter? Heck, in lockdown, what does any of it matter? So, I made tea and took it into the lounge to drink. Whilst I was flicking through my notifications on Instagram, I heard a large van very slowly and quietly reversing up our road.

As I listened, the absolute conviction grew inside me that it was him! The Yodel delivery driver who had smashed into my car three weeks earlier. Quickly, I grabbed pen and paper. I heard my next-door neighbour’s doorbell ring, and her answering her door, and then thanking someone – clearly, she was getting a delivery. It must be him!

Quietly, I opened the front door and crept down the steps to peer around the hedge that divides our houses. And there it stood. The infamous large white van. I wrote down the numberplate, checking it twice to make sure I’d copied it correctly. Then the driver walked back to his van, turned, and saw me. We just looked at each other. I said nothing. I wondered if he was going to start something, but instead he climbed back into his van and drove away.

I called the police, gave them the number. Monday morning, I called the underwriters and gave it to them. I also told them that I was not prepared to let them simply write my car off. That I had taken it to my mechanic who had examined it. It was just the wing that needed replacing. Total cost for a new wing, paint, parts, labour, and VAT was £250. Okay, they meekly agreed, let us have their details and we will contact them.

Since then, things have moved on apace. It’s amazing what a difference simply getting that number plate has made. The insurance company have already paid for the car to be repaired, minus the £100 policy excess – apparently, I get that back when he has admitted fault and his insurance has paid. The police are now paying a great deal more attention to the matter, and I’ve been informed they are pursuing him with a view to prosecution, although it could take up to six months.

Overall, the situation is a lot rosier than it was this time last week. But clearly, he is still working for Yodel. I think an email to them advising them of his number plate, the cost of repairs to my car, and the police case reference number might jog them a little. I’m not a vindictive person, and if he had only stopped and swapped details with me, as any normal decent person would do, then this whole situation could have been resolved between us without any need to involve Yodel. Accidents happen, of course they do. But, reversing away at speed as the owner of the car you’ve just decked chases after you is not an accident. That’s a conscious choice and shows exactly what type of person you are.

Anyway, we shall see what the following week brings. I received notification in the post this morning that my policy is up for renewal, but I certainly won’t be staying with the insurance brokers who took almost two weeks to call me back and then lied to me about trying to contact me and hadn’t even passed the details onto the underwriters. I shall be asking the underwriters for a quote though, as they have been nothing for fair, upfront, and honest with me, which I appreciated.

Being in lockdown, of course I’m home all the time, the only exception being when I pop out to get essential supplies. I walked to Waitrose to pick up some milk, fresh veg etc, on Tuesday afternoon. I was gone about thirty minutes, and when I got back Miss F was waiting for me.

HER: Someone called.

ME:  Who?

HER: Dunno, someone from the insurance company?

ME:  Which one?

HER: Shrugs

ME:  Well, was it One Call the insurance broker, or Ageus the underwriters?

HER: Dunno, she didn’t say.

ME:  What was her name?

HER: Didn’t give it.

ME:  Well, where’s their number?

HER: Didn’t leave one.

I gave up at this point and decided to try Ageus first – and it was them – but honestly, it’s just as well Miss F isn’t planning a career in an office, she’d be rubbish at it.

She’s been on half-term this week, so her stress levels have thankfully subsided a bit. She’s rested a lot, played online with her friends, and caught up on her assignments. Back to college on Monday, and I’m wondering if they are ever going to let her know if she’s supposed to be having her exams or not on the 8^th of March. Seeing as we are nudging towards the end of February now, they are seriously leaving it a little late to be advising students if the most important exams of their lives so far will be going ahead or not.

It’s been a quiet week; I’ve been busy putting the final polish to all my books and uploading covers with my publishing company logo on the spines. Someone once said to me that they could always tell an indie book from a traditionally published one merely by looking at the spines. Traditionally published books will always carry the logo of the publishing company at the base of the spines. Not sure I believed this, I looked at all the books on my shelves and realised she was correct. All traditionally published books do carry a logo, whereas indie books are blank.

I thought about this a lot. I’m always looking for ways to make my books indistinguishable from traditionally published ones as there is still a lot of stigma attached to being an independent author in this country. I also researched setting up your own publishing company and realised that anyone can do so to publish their own books. After all, I not only write the books, but I also publish them as well, so I am, effectively, a publishing company. All you must do is think of a name – preferably one nobody else is using – and then create a logo to use. And that’s it. There’s no cost involved, and unless you go stratospheric and start making thousands of pounds, no need to register the company anywhere either.

Then I had to think of a name. I came up with dozens, but a quick Google search always found someone else had already snaffled it. As a multi-genre author, I have long been using the tagline – an author for all seasons – and have recently had a banner made to show a tree in all four seasons to be used in my Facebook profile and on my new website. I’m also a British author, a fact I do emphasise a lot. So, I started researching old English words and then I found it – Sele – it means the seasons, prosperity, and good luck. It was perfect. A quick check revealed no one else was using it, and the domain names were up for grabs, so I purchased both selebooks.com and selebooks.co.uk and let my website designer know. Once the website is up and running, should anyone Google the name they will be taken to my website.

The lovely James at Platform House Publishing created me a great logo to go inside all my books and on the website, and a slimmed down version to go on the spines of my books. As a tree is in my banner, we decided to go with a leaf with the initials S and B entwined within it. I love it, and feel they enhance the look of my books. Maybe no one will actively notice it, but subconsciously they might, and it’s nice to know that when my books are lined up on a bookshelf they won’t stand out from traditionally published books in a negative way.

[I was going to include a picture of the logo here, but due to technical issues I can’t this week, so I will include it with next week’s blog.]

My next project is my website. At the moment it is a hot wordy mess, and it needs a major overhaul. I’m allowing myself the weekend off to draw breath and rest, then Monday morning I am starting a new regime. I’m going to allocate two or three hours every morning to start writing my next book, then in the afternoon work on the website, and slot housework and other chores around it. I need to start writing again. I’ve spent the last six weeks in lockdown working on my existing books, and now it’s time to get cracking on the next.

Judging by the government’s roadmap to leaving lockdown, non-essential shops won’t be reopening until the end of March, maybe the beginning of April, so I have about another five or six more weeks of being paid to stay home. Best I make the most of it. I think I will probably write book four of the Blackwood Family saga next, and as that will be a short book, I should get it written in that time and maybe even start on the next book.

I’ll keep you posted.

Our cat got into an enormous fight last night. I was cleaning my teeth ready for bed when almighty hell erupted outside in the garden. Unearthly shrieks and screams that startled me so much I nearly choked on my toothpaste!

Cat fights are horrendously noisy. All that swearing and yowling and hissing – I honestly did not know my cat knew that kind of language. Normally, I’d simply leave her to get on with it. But this fight sounded brutal, and it sounded like she was getting her arse handed to her in a sling. I pay the vet bills for that arse, so I switched on the garden lights, pulled on my shoes, and went out there.

The rumble was going down in the next-door garden, and the fence was thumped as they bounced off it. I heard the clang of garden chair against table and the cacophony of threats and screams got louder. I banged the fence and hissed my cat’s name. I was ignored. I thumped louder and hissed more vehemently. Total silence fell next door. I could imagine them staring at one another as they realised, they’d been caught scrapping by mum.

I called my cat again. There was a rustle, a thud, and then she appeared on top of the fence and jumped down beside me. Her tail was puffed up like Tufty the Squirrels, her ears were down, and there was a wild look in her eyes. She shot between my feet, nearly sending me flying, and charged up the path like all the hounds of hell were after her. It made me a bit nervous as to what exactly she had been fighting – and it was very dark out there, so I quickly followed her in and shut the door.

She has a few scabs, a scratch on her ear, and a sheepish expression this morning, so I can only conclude the other guy was quite a bit bigger, and if I hadn’t intervened, she might have suffered more. She’s only a tiny cat, I’m amazed she even tried to fight him at all, but I guess he was invading her turf, so it was a matter of honour.

We have an enormous Tesco home delivery booked for between 5 and 6pm this afternoon. When my car was first hit, four weeks ago now, I had the foresight to go onto the Tesco website and book the next available delivery slot as I had no idea how long I would be without car, so unable to collect my shopping as usual. Even though I didn’t care what time slot I got – I’d have taken 11pm if it had been available – today was literally the earliest I could get, so I booked it. I figured even if my car were mended, I could always change the delivery slot to an earlier click and collect slot as they tend to be easier to obtain.

But here we are, four weeks down the line with my car still out of action, so I am very relieved that a month’s worth of shopping will be brought to my doorstep today. Yes, I’ve been able to walk to my local Waitrose to pick up a few essentials, but the trouble with having to carry everything home is that you can’t get very much in one trip. After all, a carton of milk, a box of juice, cat food, laundry liquid, and some toilet rolls, and you’re about done. We’ve been gradually adding to the list over the past four weeks as we thought of things – I love how you can do that – and we had until 11:30pm last night to submit our final list. At 11pm we added a couple of last-minute things and we were done. Thank heavens I live in the middle of town though. If we lived out in the middle of nowhere how would we have managed?

How indeed would we have managed lockdown ten or even five years ago? Nowadays, almost everyone in the country has access to the internet. Home deliveries and click and collect are an established part of British shopping, with online shopping threatening to destroy the High Street. Online schooling has been a godsend for parents of school age children and working from home is now becoming the new normal. Zoom, Skype, Messenger, and all the other face-to-face communication sites have helped not just businesses conduct their affairs, but families and friends keep in touch as well. It does make me wonder if, when this is all over, whether the country will go back to being exactly the way it was before, or if a new structure will be established.

Anyway, this was meant to be a short blog, but as usual it grew. I really hope, wherever you are, that life is treating you well, and that you and your family are staying healthy and happy.

Speak next week.

Julia Blake

Happy Valentine’s Day – if you are into that sort of thing. If, like me, you think it’s all a bunch of sentimental tosh designed by card manufacturers, chocolate retailers, and florists to take people’s money, then happy Sunday.

Thank you again for all the concerned messages about my car and I can tell you there has been progress of sorts, but sadly not very positive progress. After waiting ten days for my insurance company to contact me again, I finally phoned them at 10am on Thursday morning. I got an automated message that rather snippily informed me that as 10am is ridiculously early for any company to be answering their phones – after all, you can still taste the toothpaste – I was to go to their website and have a live chat. Oh, joy.

So, I went online and sure enough, up popped a box with a very perky invitation to chat. We got the preliminaries out of the way with establishing who I was and why I was “chatting” that day. I asked for a progress update on my claim, and why I hadn’t heard anything for ten days. I can see from our records, came the reply, that our agents have repeatedly tried to phone you with no luck.

Umm, I don’t think so. We’re in lockdown, so other than a weekly trip to the shop I am always here, and if they had happened to phone in that one hour within the whole ten days, then Miss F is here. If they had called on my landline – as I asked them to – they could have left a message, but no one has. As far as we’re concerned, the landline hasn’t rung. Now, my mobile is problematic in that I simply don’t hear it ring sometimes, but I checked the calls missed register and nope, I hadn’t missed a call in over three weeks.

When I informed him of this, I got the snippy answer back that if I didn’t answer my phones, then they wouldn’t have been able to speak to me. I replied that I couldn’t answer phones that didn’t ring, and anyway, in the past ten days they had sent me no less than three emails and two texts inviting me to complete a survey on my “experience” with them, so why hadn’t they emailed or text me if they were having trouble contacting me by phone?

And that was another thing, these constant invitations to rate my experience. Umm, what experience would that be when they haven’t yet done anything for me but fail to contact me when they promised they would? To ask me to rate my experience at this point, is rather like a restaurant asking me to rate my dining experience whilst I’m still perusing the menu! At least wait until I’m on the coffee.

After a bit of huffing and puffing, he told me that my case had been handed over to the underwriters and gave me their name, telephone number, and reference number. He then began whittering on about completing a survey about my experience with him that day – I abruptly ended the chat before I forgot I was a lady.

With some trepidation, I telephoned the underwriters. This time the phone was answered immediately by the lovely Nathan. Who assured me he was there to help me. Good, because if anyone needs help right now, it’s me.

I gave him the reference number and my other identity details and he then clicked away on his computer to find me. It turns out, the insurance company hadn’t even passed on my details to them yet! So, liar liar, pants on fire! Deep breath. Start from scratch and tell the lovely Nathan my tale of woe. To be fair, he made all the right noises at all the right places as he noted it all down.

Then he gave me the cold hard truth – which was unpleasant, but I appreciated his honesty – because at least now I know exactly where I stand.

Fact One. Because I didn’t get the number plate it is making life very difficult for all concerned and is adding weeks if not months to the claim being processed.

Fact Two. Yes, they can contact Yodel with the tracking number and request the number plate of the van it relates to. And yes, they can contact the West Suffolk Council who supposedly own the CCTV on my street – although there seems confusion as to whether they own it, or the police do – and can request to see the footage. But it will all take an incredible amount of time.

Fact Three. I do not have this time. Unfortunately, my insurance is up for renewal in three weeks’ time.

Fact Four. If I renew my insurance with this claim still outstanding, my premiums will go up.

Fact Five. If they haven’t found the other driver by the time, I need to renew my insurance, I will be assigned blame. This blame will be on my record and will affect my premiums now and in the future.

Fact Six. If they never discover the identity of the other driver. Blame will be assigned to me permanently. Even though it was in no way my fault. Blame is assigned to the party whose insurance had to settle the claim. We don’t find him, it will be my insurance coughing up, ergo, my fault. Also, if they never find the other driver, I will have to pay a hefty policy excess.

Fact Seven. The insurers are not going to bother to get the car fixed. They are not even going to bother to get someone to look at it. They are simply going to write my little car off and pay me the scrap metal value.

Fact Eight. It’s a small old car – I will be lucky if they offer £150 scrappage for it. Deduct the policy excess and I will be practically paying them to take it away. I will be left with no money at all to buy another car with.

Fact Nine. Yes, I can accept the write off but not sell the car back to them and get the repairs done myself. They will then offer me a vastly reduced sum of money, still charge me a policy excess, and still assign blame to me, and put my premiums up.

Whichever way you look at it – going the insurance route will lead to poverty and being carless. If I had more time for the driver to be found and for this to be sorted, it might be worth considering, but even then, they will still only offer scrappage for it.

There is another option. Forget about claiming through my insurance. Yes, it’s annoying, because after all that’s what I have paid insurance for over thirty years for – to be protected against having to pay after an incident – but then life is annoying, and stupid, and unfair, and always bashes the little people like me. It’s a fact, swallow it down, pull up my big girl pants, and find the best way to move forward.

I telephoned my own mechanic, explained what had happened. Bring it in, he said, if it’s driveable, get it to me. So, Friday morning I got in the car and cautiously turned the key. Nothing. I tried again. There was a serious of clicks. Then Nothing. Bugger.

I got out. Slammed the door. Wiped the snow off the bonnet and windscreen. Got in the car and tried again. Still nothing. I seriously don’t know what I was expecting it to do but had to do something. I swore, loudly and voraciously, in the street.

I then did what any sensible, mature, grown-up woman of 53 would do. I sniffed back the tears and went indoors and phoned my dad.

It’s the battery, he said. From standing still in the freezing temperatures we’ve had over the past fortnight your battery has died. He drove in with his jump leads and after a couple of attempts, the car flew into life. I cautiously drove to the mechanics and dad followed me – just in case.

The mechanic had a good look at it and did that sucking his breath in over his teeth thing that I think all mechanics are taught at motor mechanic school. It’s just the wing, he confirmed. It’s not damaged inside at all; it is just the wing. It needs a new one. Yes, the bumper is cracked but that won’t affect its roadworthiness or getting it through the MOT. If we can find another bumper, then it’s just labour and paint on top, plus VAT. About £150-£200.

I was relieved. That was doable. Okay, it’s going to put a dent in my savings, a serious dent. But, at least my lovely reliable, low mileage car, will be saved to drive another day. My insurance record will remain blemish free and my premiums won’t go up. We’ll have a look on eBay and see what we can find, he promised me.

I went home feeling a bit more positive, but an hour later my phone rang, and it was my mechanic. There were no wings for 1996 Nissan Micra’s to be had anywhere. Not on eBay, and not on any of the other second-hand car part retailers they had tried. The only place they could get one from was a supplier called Europaparts – but it was expensive, a lot more than the £50 or so they used to be one eBay. It was going to push the price up to £300.

I told them I’d think about it, and hung up, feeling well and truly kicked in the teeth again, and that I must have been a really horrible person in a previous life because I could never catch a break in this one. Anyway, about now Miss F woke up and I told her what had happened.

Did you look on eBay yourself? She asked.

Yes, I replied glumly. I had looked up 1996 Nissan Micra passenger wing and just got a whole page of wing mirrors. And then I looked online and the only retailers selling them didn’t have any in stock – apart from this Europaparts who have them for £126.

Well, what about this one, she said, holding out her phone to show an eBay listing of a passenger side brand new wing for a Nissan Micra 1996 for £60.

What?!

How did you find it when I couldn’t, and presumably, neither could my mechanic?

You were being too specific, she said, I just put in 1996 Nissan Micra wing and this is what came up.

I was stunned that one word could make such a difference and quickly phoned my mechanic back. Yes, he said, order it, get it delivered directly to me and then I can fit it and spray it the same colour to match.

So, I quickly bought it, altered the delivery address to my mechanics and paid for it. So, I now have a brand-new wing on its way, and I haven’t yet told the insurance company I no longer need their services.

Monday, I’ll do it Monday, this weekend I have had enough of the whole thing. I am staggered by the unfairness of it all, and that fact that I am left with no other option but to use my precious, and hard-earned money to pay for damage caused by the selfish and careless actions of another. But that is life, and until I can afford a house with a garage or a private driveway, I will have to continue to park my car on the street outside my house – another factor against me and for which I am apparently to blame, according to the insurance company – because if the car had been in my mythical garage then it would never have been hit. Well, duh, thanks for that.

When I renew in three weeks, guess whom I won’t be re-insuring with, and I will be filling in that “rate your experience with us” survey. Although the lovely Nathan at the underwriters did say I could insure directly with them – and I just might. He was kind, professional, sugar coated nothing, and gave me all the facts – which I appreciated. Plus, his company considered 10am on a Thursday plenty early enough to be answering the phone.

We had another almost nasty incident this week, which very nearly resulted in yet another insurance claim, this time on household insurance. My wretched cat has started sleeping either on top of the cooker, or on my beautiful white porcelain draining board. I don’t know why, there are lots of other warmer and more comfortable places to nap, but for some reason these are the places of choice.

She doesn’t do it during the day when we could catch her and shoo her off, but only at night, so in the morning I come down to find them covered with cat fur, mud, the odd whisker and even an occasional claw. It’s disgusting, and I’m getting fed up with having to bleach them down every morning. And before you ask, no, I can’t shut her out of the kitchen. The back door has her cat flap in for her to go outside and do her business, so she must have access to it.

One evening I’d had enough. I built a barricade of laundry basket and washing up bowl on the draining board, then laid a thick towel over the cooker and sprinkled it with eucalyptus oil because she hates the smell. I then went to bed hopeful I’d solved the problem.

I slept a little late next morning, and when I came downstairs and opened the dining room door, I was struck by a strong smell of something scorching, burning. Stumbling into the kitchen, still half asleep, I immediately saw something dark lying on the towel and thought at first the cat had thrown up on it – a sort of protest puke – but then realised it was in fact a huge scorch mark in a perfect ring. Quickly snatching up the towel, it revealed the back hob glowing bright red! Now, it’s a back ring and one I only use if the other three are in use, so I knew I hadn’t left it switched on from dinner the previous evening. Besides, it glows so brightly red one of us would have spotted it before we went to bed. No, I think the cat had been up on the towel exploring and knocked the knob either jumping up or jumping down! Luckily, it had only been knocked to the first setting not full blast, otherwise I’m guessing the towel would have gone up in flames!

Bloody cat! Remind me again why we have pets.

About my Instagram account – no, I still don’t have access to my main account. I have no idea how long the ban will hold for, or even if I will ever get it back. I really hope so, but in the meantime, I’m enjoying the wonderful support I’ve been receiving on my back-up account. Although I did have a scare last week where for 24 hours, I could only post images on my new account, no text, and I couldn’t like or comment on anything. That was worrying because it looked like Instagram were really determined to get rid of me. But we edited my bio, uninstalled, cleared data, and reinstalled and it came back next morning, so hopefully it’s now settled down.

But I seriously need to look at other ways to promote my books because it seems Instagram have it in for authors and anyone else promoting their services on there.

We still haven’t done anything about finding another lodger yet. What with all the stress that has been present in this house the past six weeks – Miss F and her college work and exams (she still hasn’t been told if she is taking her exams at the beginning of March or not), and my car, and being shut in the house because of lockdown – I honestly think it was a good thing no one else was in the house with us. But, come March when they are making noises about letting us back out even though most of the work force will not have been vaccinated, we will need to advertise the room again.

To that end, we have moved our old TV which is a 19” flat screen down to the basement. It has been languishing in the back bedroom for three years since we bought our smart TV, but Miss F has never used it so I thought it would be better in the basement as a further attraction for the room. There is an aerial down there, but I don’t think it’s possible to access what I call “normal” TV anymore – the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and 5 channels – without having a smart TV. So, Miss F did some research and discovered the Now TV stick for sale on Amazon for £20. You put it into the HDMI port in the back of the TV and it turns the TV into a smart TV with access to all the “normal” channels, plus Now TV, and several Sky channels, and a few others I hadn’t heard of. You get the first month for free, then after that it’s £10 a month. Plus, if the new lodger wants to, they can access their Netflix and Amazon Prime accounts through it.

You can run a total of six devices off this one stick – so we have it on the basement TV, our TV upstairs, Miss F’s tablet and her phone, then when she goes away to university in September, she will be able to access it on the little TV she’s going to get for her room and be able to access our Netflix and Amazon Prime accounts, which will be great for her. Hopefully, it will make our room even more attractive.

There is an old wicker armchair in the basement room, but I don’t think any lodger has ever actually sat in it – they seem to use it more as a dumping place for clothes, or as a drying rack for wet towels. And when conducting interviews, the one thing potential lodgers all ask about is can I put a desk in here? So, I thought I would remove the armchair and put a small desk and chair in its place. What with more people working some of the time from home, the prospect of further lockdowns hanging over our heads, plus most people having laptops and computers and wanting somewhere to put them, I think it would be another selling point for the room.

I measured up and had a quick look on Argos. Several little desks that would do, but absolutely none of them available. I looked on Amazon, it was the same story. I checked eBay and several other furniture retailers. Nope, small desks suitable for a home environment are completely sold out. I’m guessing it’s because of all the home working and home schooling that is now going on, everyone has bought desks and because many factories are closed, stocks have been depleted. All I can do is wait and hope that supplies are replenished sometime soon.

And now we’re halfway through another month already and it’s Valentine’s Day. I haven’t really celebrated it for almost twenty years – although Miss F and I always have a nice meal and maybe watch a film. I popped to our local Waitrose during the week for supplies, luckily, I live in the middle of town so while the car is out of action, I have been able to walk for shopping. What I would have done if I’d been stuck out in the middle of nowhere, I don’t know. When the accident happened two weeks ago, I had the foresight to go onto Tesco and book a delivery slot – but still, the first available one wasn’t until the 20^th February, so I’ve had to pop out for fresh stuff as necessary.

Anyway, I went to Waitrose and they had their Valentine Day Meal for £20 offer. You could choose from a selection of products and buy a starter, a main course, two side dishes, a dessert, and a bottle of bubbly, all for £20. The main was easy – a pair of gorgeous sirloin steaks which we’ve already eaten, and they were lovely (Miss F requested sticky barbecued pork steaks for Valentine’s Day and I had already picked those up) – then two sides of French fries and a big bag of salad. The starter was harder, in the end I picked up a pack of mixed Italian meats – salami, chorizo, and Parma ham – they’re very useful in pasta and on pizza. Dessert was a nightmare – all full fat dairy which would kill my poor lactose intolerant daughter. In the end I picked up a pair of lemon tarts because I love them. Plus, a lovely bottle of prosecco. I also grabbed some vegan salted caramel ice cream for Miss F to make up for not being able to eat the lemon tart – although in the end she took a lactase pill and ate one of them anyway. So, a win-win for her really.

And that has been my week. Not a particularly great one. I have no idea what it must be like for normal people who have nice, long, quiet weeks when they can just relax and watch TV or read, without the constant strain of life kicking them in the teeth. Normal life must be wonderful, I’ve seen the brochure and it looks lovely, but I’ve never been there myself.

This has turned out to be a very long blog, for which I apologise. I hope wherever you are, you are well and safe, and that life is treating you kindly. I will chat with all again next week, and you never know, maybe I will be able to report a nice quiet week where nothing very much happened.

Maybe … maybe not.

Julia Blake