The news about finding a new lodger goes from bad to worse. As you know, when my last lodger moved out and I stripped off the bedding I discovered brown stains all over a relatively new mattress which had certainly been in pristine condition when he moved in. He returned the next day to give the room a quick clean, return my key and parking permit, and do what I call a “final walkthrough”. This is when I and the lodger go through every cupboard and drawer in the room, we also check they’ve taken everything that is theirs from the kitchen and bathroom. It’s also a good time to see if everything in the room is as it was when they moved in.

I showed him the stains. At first, he denied it could possibly have been him. Okay, so who else has been sleeping down here with you? Answer, no one. Then he tried to tell me the mattress had looked like that when he moved in. Umm, I don’t think so. The mattress is obviously one thing I examine thoroughly between lodgers and it certainly wasn’t like that when the previous lodger moved out – otherwise I would have had this conversation with them and sorting it out would have come out of their damages deposit not yours.

Eventually, he admitted that maybe he had fallen asleep clutching a takeaway cup of Coke, and maybe dropped it. That sounds more like it. I honestly don’t know how he thought he was going to get away with it. Did he think that I don’t strip the bed and remake it between lodgers? Obviously, I was going to notice massive circular brown stains on a previously pristine white mattress.

Anyway, he has been told that luckily, I took out insurance on the mattress and luckily, I am eligible to claim, so that is what I have done. They can’t come out until the 9^th of September to clean it though, so he will just have to wait until after then to get the deposit back because there may be costs involved, or they may say it’s beyond rescuing in which case the cost of a new mattress will be coming out of it.

Being a basement room there is always the potential of a damp problem, but this has never been an issue until now. When a new lodger moves in I do tell them they must open up the window occasionally to air the room through, and under no circumstances must they attempt to dry clothes in their room or hang wet towels down there.

This lodger was told the same thing. But certain lies were told to me during the interview which made it difficult for him to obey the edict about opening the window. It turned out he was a night worker. Now, I’ve always avoided night workers as I don’t want to be woken up at all hours of the night when they’re getting home from a nightshift and slamming the front door which is right below my bedroom. I also don’t want to have to tiptoe around the house all day trying to keep quiet because they are asleep.

Every person who comes to view the room is asked about their working hours. This lodger was also asked and assured me he was an evening worker, that he would be home no later than 10:30pm each evening. Okay, I thought, fair enough. So, he moved in. Now either he immediately changed his working hours, or he defined an evening as ending at 2:30am, because right from the word go, he was working nights.

In the beginning he would wake me up every night getting home at that time and slamming doors. Until the night I stormed downstairs, heavy eyed, and livid at being woken up yet again because he was incapable of closing the door quietly – and gave him an impromptu lesson on door shutting. But of course, because he was asleep most of the day, and didn’t get up until he was literally about to leave the house for work – he was never able to get the window open.

He also never used the rack on the back of the bathroom door to dry his towels on. Instead he would take it back down to his room and throw it onto the armchair to dry. Now, hanging up wet towels to dry in ANY room is never a good idea, but in a basement room that was also not being aired at all? Definitely, not a good idea.

So, he moved out. I went down into the room for the first time in sixteen months and immediately realised there was a damp problem. Is it just because of the issues listed above so airing it and a good clean will sort it out? Or is it a more serious issue? I’ve bought a dehumidifier and whenever the window isn’t open that is whirring away collecting moisture. I also have a promise from a builder friend to come round with a damp meter and give his professional opinion. But between this and waiting for the mattress to be cleaned, it means I can’t advertise for a new lodger yet.

Last week I began to tell you all about lodgers I have had in the past and we ended with the lovely Miss C moving out to fulfil her dream of going to the London School of Fashion. Having her live with us had been enormous fun and made me realise how great it is having a young person living in the house. I activated the ad again and was almost immediately inundated with applicants. Eventually, I settled on a tall young lad called Mr J. He was funny and polite and the manager of a local high street fashion shop. He played guitar – but only during sociable hours – was passionate about cooking and enjoyed the odd film or two. He stayed about nine months, before a friend asked him to flat share with him and then he moved out.

I advertised again, and a week or so later another young man, Mr N, moved in. Initially, he was great. A website designer he was quite useful to have around, although I did have to change my broadband package to unlimited, after he racked up a £30 excess use bill the first month he was here. He was a bit of a nerd and was terrified of spiders and the number of times I had to go down there to rescue him from a “simply enormous one” – it was tiny – was unbelievable. He was also a complete hypochondriac, which could be really funny.

I remember once me and Miss F were sitting in the dining room when the door to the bathroom burst open and Mr N charged through the kitchen and into the dining room wearing nothing but a towel and a face full of shaving foam. We looked at him in alarm, and I noticed there was a tiny speck of blood on his chin where he’d clearly nicked himself with the razor.

“Julia!” he gasped. “Phone an ambulance immediately!”

“It’s only a tiny scratch,” I replied.

“No! I’m having an asthma attack!”

Quickly, I phoned for an ambulance whilst he collapsed in a chair, trying to keep his towel in place and I sent Miss F to get a damp flannel so he could wipe the foam from his face. The ambulance came, took his blood pressure, calmed him down, and asked him some questions. Mr N then proceeded to spout off all his vital statistics as in normal blood pressure, heartrate, cholesterol levels, BMI, exact height and weight, and various other facts and figures about himself that I think most of us would struggle to even guess at.

“That’s amazing,” one of the paramedics said. “How do you know all this stuff?”

“Oh, I’m a hypochondriac,” he freely admitted, and wondered why we all fell about laughing.

So, for about six months, Mr N was great. Then he found a girlfriend. No, he didn’t just find a girlfriend, he found the love of his life. Jeez. How annoying, careless, and downright rude did he become after that?

I have a rule about boyfriends/girlfriends in that I don’t mind the odd stayover, once or twice a week is fine, but I don’t want them moving in. It’s a room in a small house, with only one bathroom. I neither want, nor have the facilities to cope with couples living here. At first, he obeyed this rule, and I really liked his girlfriend, she was very sweet. I think one of the best evenings I ever had lodger wise was when Mr N and I cooked a big meal between us because his girlfriend was coming over, and Miss C was coming back to see us for the weekend, then we were all going out together, along with a friend of mine who knew Miss C well from the old days when she had lodged with me.

The five of us had just sat down to eat when there was a knock at the door. I went to open it and it was Mr J, the lodger prior to Mr N. He’d been passing and thought he’d look in. So of course, he was invited to stay for dinner, and we all squeezed around the table and had a wonderful meal. Afterwards when Miss C, my friend, and I were clearing the table, the boys brought up Mr N’s guitars – he was a guitar player too, although not as proficient as Mr J – and they began an impromptu session which was wonderful. Then we all went out together and it was a brilliant evening. A group of six people with ages ranging from 20 to 43, all getting on very well together.

It all went downhill after that. Mr N’s girlfriend began to stay over more frequently. Eventually she was here ALL THE TIME! If I wanted to have a shower, I couldn’t, because she was in it. If I wanted to use the washing machine, her clothes were in it. If I wanted to cook dinner for Miss F and I, I couldn’t, because she had taken over the entire kitchen and was cooking a special meal for her and Mr N. She was just always there!

She would drive over from work Tuesday evening and would be here until Sunday evening. It was all too much. Not only did I feel my home was no longer my own, but my utilities and water bills were escalating due to having a fourth person in the house. She also disrupted our morning routine by hogging the bathroom and had made Miss F late for school and me late for work on more than one occasion. So, I had a little chat with Mr N, and we agreed that boundaries needed to be set and we compromised on three nights a week maximum.

For a couple of weeks, it all seemed to work. Then came a weekend when we didn’t see much of him. His girlfriend had been over Tuesday evening to Friday morning and had, I presumed returned to her own home. Other than hearing him rustling around in the kitchen, we saw nothing of Mr N until Sunday afternoon when I was washing the kitchen floor and he came up to put some clothes in the washing machine, but my stuff was already in there. I told him it wouldn’t be much longer and would call him as soon as the machine was free.

Ten minutes later I stuck my head around the corner of the basement door that he’d left open to call down the stairs that the machine was free, and discovered his girlfriend standing at the bottom of the stairs. Shocked, I asked how long she had been there, and she sheepishly admitted that he’d smuggled her back in Friday evening and she’d been there ever since.

It made me feel odd, and annoyed, that someone had been in my home all that time and I hadn’t been aware of it. I felt lied to, and quite frankly, I’d had enough. I asked his girlfriend if she could understand why I felt that way, and how would her father feel if she’d hidden Mr N in his home without informing her father he was there. Oh, I’d never do that to my dad, she told me. I respect him too much.

Oka-a-ay. That just about said it all. I decided not to make a scene in front of his girlfriend, but that I needed to have another chat with Mr N, and maybe tactfully suggest that they find a flat together. We chatted. The decision that he needed to move out was mutual. A month later they found the perfect little love nest which they bought everything new for. I shuddered at the thought of the monthly repayments they were saddling themselves with, but it wasn’t my problem, so I kept quiet. They moved in together. Less than two months later I saw on Facebook that they’d separated, rather acrimoniously, and that he was once again single and lodging somewhere in town. Ho hum. That tends to be the way it goes, I’m afraid.

I advertised again. This time, to my surprise, hardly anyone answered the ad, and I began to worry that I wouldn’t find anyone. Then a man came to view who seemed okay. I offered him the room, and Mr D moved in. Within a few days I realised I’d made a terrible mistake. What had seemed like the best deadpan humour ever at interview, turned out to be absolutely no sense of humour at all. He was dull, staid, opinionated, and downright odd, especially in his eating habits. In fact, I have never seen anyone eat the way he did. He ate a lot, well, he was a big guy so that in itself wasn’t strange. It was what he ate that was peculiar. I’ll give you an example.

One night, I saw him prepare his dinner. It comprised of a whole packet of savoury noodles meant for three people on a large plate. A whole ready-made shepherd’s pie on top. Then a tin of cold baked beans on top of that. Then a tin of cold mushy peas. And to finish it all off, mint sauce squirted all over it. And that was one of his more normal meals.

He would go to the shop and literally empty the “reduced to clear section” and eat whatever he’d managed to get. I remember once he bought a pack of lamb’s livers going really cheap. He put them into a bowl, covered it with clingfilm, and nuked them in the microwave. I didn’t even know you could cook liver like that! The liver turned grey and stank the kitchen out. He then sat down at the table, took off the clingfilm and proceeded to eat the whole pack. And that was his dinner. A large pack of liver cooked in the microwave.

One day I came home from work, opened my fridge to put away some shopping, and found the shelves were awash with blood!! He’d been given a load of offal free – and no, I don’t want to think about that either – so he’d brought it home and slung it into the fridge. It wasn’t wrapped, or even on plates, he just thrown livers, kidneys, hearts, and tripe loose in there! Blood was dripping through the shelves onto my food!

Beyond angry, I hammered on his door and ordered him up to explain himself. Why had he contaminated not only my fridge but most of my food as well. But he totally failed to understand what my problem was. It’s just food he said. It wouldn’t hurt me.

Umm, hello? Listeria, E-coli, botulism, salmonella! Yes, I would love to have a hefty dose of food poisoning this weekend. He then went out and left me to deal with it! Muttering angrily the whole time, I spent a couple of hours double bagging all his disgusting internal organs – in my head disposing of his own internal organs as well – cleaning and sterilising the fridge and picking through which of my food could be salvaged – not a lot. I then went to the shop and replaced everything that had been ruined. I copied the receipt and added to it another £50 for my time, inconvenience and cleaning materials, and when he returned informed him that this amount would be coming out of his damages deposit. He just sneered at me and said, “Oh we’ll see about that.”

It was at this point I realised he was possibly a psychopath.

He was a carer for elderly and vulnerable people, although there’s no way I would ever have left any elderly relative of mine in his care. One day I came home to discover a big cake sitting on the worksurface. Again, it was ON the worksurface, not on a plate or a board or anything silly like that, no, just on the actual worksurface, with a big piece cut out and crumbs everywhere. Sighing, I fetched a plate and tidied up. It was a lovely sponge cake with jam and buttercream filling, and clearly was homemade.

When he appeared, I told him I had sorted out the cake for him and how lovely it looked and had someone made it for him.

“No, I got it from the elderly lady I looked after this morning.”

“Oh, how sweet. She made you a cake as a thank you for looking after her?”

“No, one of her family made her the cake. I just took it.”

“What? You took her cake?”

“Yes.”

“Did she say you could take her cake?”

“No, but she’s so batty she won’t remember if she ate it or not.”

“So, you stole her cake?”

“It’s not really stealing. She would have forgotten to eat it so it would have gone to waste.”

“That’s totally not the point! You stole food from an elderly and vulnerable person who was in your care! I would imagine the agency and her family wouldn’t be too pleased about it!”

He snarled at me and stamped away, taking the cake with him. I felt very uncomfortable about the whole thing and wondered if I should tell someone about it. I considered his actions not only illegal but also highly unethical. I also wondered if he was taking stuff from me because he thought I might be too batty to notice.

The more I thought about it, the more I realised this guy had to go. I didn’t want him in my home anymore. To be completely honest, he frightened me. There was something about his eyes that sent chills down my spine.

The next morning, he came and tapped on my lounge door and told me that he was relocating with his job so would be moving out before the end of the month. He was sorry for any inconvenience, but the commute would be a bit much, so he felt it made sense to find lodgings closer to his new place of work.

Of course, I agreed, it made perfect sense. He had paid up to the end of the month, so any time he wished to go before then was fine. Please could he ensure he tidied the room back to a state fit for viewing as I would be reactivating the ad immediately and obviously would be taking potential new lodgers into it. He agreed, and the moment he left I went onto the website and listed the room as available again.

A couple of days passed, and I had a long list of appointments of people wishing to view the room. I made sure I did him the courtesy of informing him of this and reminding him that the room must be clean and tidy, and any personal items he did not wish seen put away. Again, he agreed, so next morning – ten minutes before the first person was due – I thought I’d just pop down and ensure all was in order. I didn’t think it could be so bad as he’d been living in it less than two months and unlike many lodgers, he actually washed the bedding every week. Miss F came too as she was curious.

What we found beggared belief! Sacks of potatoes and onions lined up against the wall. Big pallets of long-life milk stacked up to waist height. Bags and bags of tins everywhere! Stocks of toilet rolls. Now bear in mind this was 2013! If I’d found those things this year, I wouldn’t have turned a hair, but back then…?

Quickly, we grabbed the sacks of food and managed to manhandle them upstairs and out into the shed. The bags of tins we shoved under the bed, and the packets of toilet rolls we stored in my bedroom just to get them out of the way.

There is plenty of storage for the lodger’s food in the kitchen, so there was no need to store food in his bedroom. Also, the sheer volume of food was staggering. He was just one man! It would have taken him years to eat his way through all of that – even the way he ate. Was there an apocalypse coming that I’d failed to get the memo about? I couldn’t show the room in that state, and we’d just finished relocating all his supplies when the doorbell rang.

When he came home, I informed him what I had done, and told him that until he moved out and took all of it with him – his nuclear holocaust rations would be staying where they were. He was livid and began screaming at me that I had no right to touch his belongings. I just calmly raised a brow and told him that in the contract he signed it stated that upon handing in notice, the room had to be returned to the state it was in when he first viewed it, and that I reserved the right to do it myself if the lodger failed to comply.

He stomped around the kitchen in a fury for the rest of the evening, so I disappeared into my lounge and left him to it. Later, I heard him shouting on his phone in the basement under me, about how I had violated his privacy and he should look into suing me. Yeah, good luck with that one, mate.

His next trick was he informed me that as he would probably be moving out before the end of the rental period he’d paid for, that I would be refunding him the rent he’d paid. Oh, you bloody well think so, do you? One, it doesn’t work that way. If a lodger has paid to live in my house up until a certain date, then they are entitled to live there until midnight on that date. Baring certain circumstances I cannot ask them to leave any earlier. But if they choose to move out earlier that is on them and no rent will be returned. This is standard practice and is clearly stated in the contract all lodgers sign before moving in. Anyway, I was in no frame of mind to do him any favours by this point.

He was not happy with this and kept demanding to know if I was going to refund him the money or not. When I told him not and reminded him that neither was he getting all of his damages deposit back due to the offal in fridge incident, he became very belligerent. He started shouting at me and generally behaving in a threatening manner.

Now, he was a big chap, at least 6’4” and solidly built. I am barely over 5’ and obviously much smaller than him, but I have a Jack Russell tendency when threatened to forget how small I am. He yelled in my face, so I pulled myself up to my full height, glared at him, and told him how dare he threaten me in my own home, and that maybe I should call the police to come and have a little “chat” with him. He paused to think about that, then launched his final weapon in his argument.

“If you don’t refund me that rent and pay me back my full deposit, I will… I will…”

“You’ll do what?” I snarled.

“Move out even earlier!” He snapped and disappeared into his room slamming the door for full effect.

“Fine! Don’t let the door catch you on the arse on your way out.”

He moved out the next day – apparently to stay at a friend’s house. Astonished he actually had friends, I watched him go, got my key and parking permit back, and have never been so relieved to have a lodger leave. Would he actually have harmed me? I don’t know. But I do know I have never had a lodger make me feel so uncomfortable in my own home. As Miss F said after he’d left – “I didn’t like him, mum. He had serial killer eyes.” And I had to agree with her.

This blog has once again reached epic proportions and I’m still only up to 2013. I think the departure of creepy liver guy is a good place to stop and I can continue the story next week. In the meantime, I’m working four days over the weekend as it’s a bank holiday in the UK and most people are enjoying a long weekend off, unless you work in retail of course.

In bookish news, finally, after nearly six long years, The Book of Eve is ready for republication and I’m looking at a launch day of next Wednesday. If you have a moment, why not check out my Instagram or Facebook pages where pictures of the gorgeous new cover and lots of wonderful promo stuff will be posted daily, and on Wednesday the book will be available to buy from an Amazon site near you.

So, stay safe, stay happy, and I’ll catch up with you all next week.

Julia Blake

“No rest for the wicked” – isn’t that what they say? Well, if that’s true, then I must be pure evil! Had an even more stupidly crazily busy week than normal this week! There were my usual two days at work Monday and Tuesday, then on Wednesday Miss F had her two best friends around for lunch to celebrate her birthday. Now, birthday celebrations for a 17 year old are thankfully a lot less hands-on than those for a seven or even a ten year old, and apart from paying for all the food and making sure the house and garden were clean and tidy, my role in the shenanigans was mercifully minimal.

Whilst her and her friends commandeered the kitchen, dining room, and garden, I was able to sequester myself away in the lounge and crack on with the beta reader amendments to “The Book of Eve”. Despite the odd interruption re where things were and how long I thought three, fully loaded pizzas would take to cook, I managed to get the manuscript completely amended.

It was so hot though. Luckily, our house being an old Victorian terrace it remains reasonably cool and our garden is very shady. But set foot outside in the street and heat just boiled up at you from the pavement. It topped 40 degrees centigrade, which is ridiculous for Britain, especially as we mostly don’t have an air conditioning, and it’s a very humid and muggy heat. I had three showers on Wednesday, but each time was drenched in sweat again before I’d even left the bathroom.

I did manage to get the blurb written for “The Book of Eve” though and get that sent to my cover designer, so that’s a relief. Ask any author what they think of writing the blurb and they’ll probably cry. Write a 100,000 word novel? Piece of cake. Write 200 words summarising it in a way that will hook a reader but not give any spoilers? Nope, just nope.

Thursday, I had reluctantly earmarked for going clothes shopping. Now, I hate clothes shopping at the best of times. Being only 5’1” and having short legs and perhaps not being as slender as I would like to be, finding anything to fit me is an absolute nightmare. Miss F ordered a load of clothes online during lockdown and again last week as part of her birthday present, and apart from one pair of trousers that she sent back because she didn’t like the waistband, everything else fitted and looked great – but then she’s 17, tall, thin, and beautiful. I never buy clothes online for reasons you will fully understand when you’ve finished reading this blog. And apart from a new pair of jeans and a blouse just before Christmas last year, I haven’t bought anything since last summer.

Pre-Covid, a shopping expedition would go something like this – I would realise there was no choice, I absolutely HAD to buy some clothes. I would go out dressed in easily removable clothing, with no make up on, and shoes I can just slip on and off.

I’d be alone, always! The thought of having witnesses to my misery is one that makes me shiver, and besides – woman shops faster who shops alone! I would enter the shop. Starting at one end of the racks I would systematically work my way through. My system is simple – do they have it in my size? Yes. Right, hold it up against myself – how about the length? Most clothing manufacturers refuse to admit that woman under 5’7” actually walk the Earth and so don’t make clothes to fit us dwarfish troglodytes (get back in your cave and wrap yourself in sackcloth and ashes, you misshapen freak you! We only make clothes for tall, skinny, beautiful women!) Finding anything to fit was almost impossible. Finding anything that not only fitted, but that suited me, and I liked, was akin to finding the Holy Grail!

I would then go into the changing room with a massive armful of clothing. If there was a five item only rule, I would usually wheedle the assistant into either waiving it, or enlist her help constantly ferrying clothes in and out of the cubicle I had temporarily taken up residence in.

I’d strip – underneath would be flesh coloured, plain and simple underwear – I know from experience how the wrong bra or a VPL can completely change how you feel about an outfit. Trying on would then commence. I’m fast and furious when it comes to clothes shopping. Put it on. Look honestly in the mirror. Most things are an instant “no”. Over the years I’ve learnt never to think “maybe” – maybe if I wore it with heels, maybe if I put my hair up, maybe if I lose a stone in weight, maybe if I have plastic surgery – because if it’s a “maybe” then that outfit will languish in your wardrobe for the next five years, still with all its tags on, until you take it to the charity shop guilty at the money you wasted on it.

No, try it on, scrutinise yourself from every angle in the mirrors. If it’s a no, take it off and put on the no peg – likewise if it’s a maybe. If it’s a yes, then hang it on the yes peg for later consideration. I would speedily work my way through the entire thirty or forty articles of clothing I have. Usually, out of this lot I will find three or four things I like. Buy them. Go home. Immediately try them on at home again and look in the mirror. Do you still like it? Check out your wardrobe. Do you have anything you can wear with it? Think, will there be any occasion you will wear it to? Yes, that full length opera gown may make you look like Christina from “The Phantom of the Opera” but unless you regularly attend balls then you’re never going to wear it. If the answer to any of these questions is no, then carefully take it off, put them back in the bag and take it back to the shop.

Then move onto the next shop and start the whole process again.

So, you can see why clothes shopping was such an issue with me, and that was pre-Covid when I could weed out most of the undesirables in one massive try-on session in the changing room. But now we’re not allowed to try on anymore. We’re expected to actually buy the clothes, bring them home, try them on, cry, and then take them all back!

And that’s what I had to do. Over, and over, again on Thursday in 40 degrees heat! It took almost five hours of traipsing around the shops, buying stuff, bringing it home, trying them on, subjecting myself to Miss F’s intense, critical scrutiny, and then taking them back, exchanging for more, coming home, trying them on, taking them back – and so on, and so on – to finally end up with two linen dresses, two pairs of linen trousers, and six tops, oh, and a new bag.

It was a nightmare! Luckily, I live a two-minute walk from the shopping centre so could do this, but I can’t imagine what a pain in the arse this must be for people living further from town. I also have no idea what state this has left my bank account in! I had to buy everything I wanted to try on, and yes, I took most of it back, but although the shops are quick enough to take the money from your bank account the same day of purchase, they’re not so quick to put it back in. I did hope that as all the transactions occurred on the same day then it might speed the refund process up, but don’t know if it helped at all. I haven’t dared look at my account yet.

Thursday was also exam results day, so Miss F was all of a dither to find out how she’d done in her end of year exams. We’d knew she’d passed, so it was a question of how well she’d done – and also with all the downgrading of results that the government has been doing (Why? Why?!) there was still a bit of a question mark hanging over it. She had to telephone in and the lines were only open between 9:30am and 3:00pm, there were apparently only two people answering the phone, and over 500 students desperately trying to get through. Almost the whole time I was out shopping, Miss F was phoning, getting the busy tone, hanging up, trying again. Eventually, she got through and received the amazing news that not only did she pass, but she passed with a distinction which is practically the highest pass you can get! That means she now has the equivalent of two A’Levels at grade A, which is amazing. I am so proud of her, she has worked really hard all year and then had to take some of her exams under very difficult circumstances. Really nice things have been happening to her lately, and most of it is due to hard work and perseverance. A valuable life lesson that if you don’t give up and work really hard, you will get what you want.

As it’s Miss F’s birthday this week, we are going out for lunch on Saturday with my parents to the restaurant where Miss F has a part-time job. It is a top-level posh place and I really wanted to look smart and not embarrass her by rocking up in my usual scruffy and dishevelled state. Bearing that mind, I brought home several dresses to try on and to my surprise two of them fitted and passed Miss F’s narrowed-eyed look of judgement. Both are linen and reach the knee. One is a simple black shift dress with cap sleeves – essential, as any woman of 53 will tell you! It’s plain, except for some detailing around the hem, it’s loose and cool, and, best of all, it has pockets!

The other is a powder blue colour, again with cap sleeves. It buttons right the way up the front with tiny round buttons covered with the same fabric as the dress. It’s more fitted over the boobs with an almost empire line cut to it. Again, it’s loose and cool. Sadly, no pockets, but you can’t have everything.

Both are a little more low cut than I usually wear, but I have an amazing necklace that Miss F bought me one Christmas which works perfectly with them both, and I have a pair of open toed wedge sandals made of colourful fabric and jewels. So, I thought that was me sorted. Either outfit was very suitable for lunching out in a posh restaurant in the middle of a heatwave – smart and cool – not a combination that happens very often.

But I should have known, shouldn’t I? I should have known that the best laid plans of mice and Julia are all filed away somewhere. Friday morning, the day of Miss F’s actual birthday, the temperature had crept down a bit. I had to go to the Post Office and send off all the signed copies of my latest books to beta readers, my editor, and my formatter, and was able to wear jeans for the first time in weeks without feeling stupidly overdressed and that I was going to melt. But I told myself it was fine. I would be fine! It was still reasonably warm, at least 27 degrees, so I could still wear either of the linen dresses and be warm enough.

For her actual birthday Miss F had requested a chill out day of nice food, games, and Netflix. So the afternoon was spent teaching her how to play Othello (and getting my arse kicked at it), and playing endless rounds of Cluedo – Colonel Mustard, in the billiards rooms, with the lead piping – and I didn’t really pay much attention to the weather, until late afternoon when it suddenly went very dark, it got cold, and then the heavens opened!

And now it’s Saturday morning. I’ve showered and my nails are painted nicely, but the temperature has plummeted to 18 degrees, it’s still raining, and it’s looking like a linen dress is no longer a viable option. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do. I know when most women say they have “nothing to wear”, this is in fact a lie which would easily be dispelled by a quick glance at their bulging wardrobe. But when I say I have nothing to wear, I mean, I literally have nothing to wear! I’ve never been that fussed about clothes, and I’m quite a simple dresser. It’s got worse as I’ve got older, and now that I have uniform for work, I no longer have to buy half decent stuff to wear every day.

Not believing my claims of being clothes-less, Miss F marched to my wardrobe and threw open the doors. Empty coathangers rattled and she stared at me.

“Where are all your clothes?”

“Well…” I gestured helplessly at the cavernously empty space. “That’s it.”

The brutal fact is, clothes are expensive, and being a single mum it has meant that over the years any spare pennies I had to waste on clothes, usually got wasted on clothes for her, and I’ve made do with the barest minimum, relying on charity shop finds and sales bargains to get what I needed.

So, here I am. Looking at the rain lashing down on the window, comfortably cool in my thick jeans and t-shirt and wondering what on earth outfit I’m going to manage to pull out of the hat at the eleventh hour.

We’re in a bubble with my parents so can go into their house, but I know my brother and my niece – whom we haven’t seen since Christmas – were hoping to sit in my parents garden with us before lunch. But it’s raining, so **shrugs** I have no idea what’s going to happen now!

This evening we have family coming over for cheese and wine and a games evening, which we’re looking forward to, and then that’s my four days over and I’m back to work tomorrow, and of course it’s forecast that the heatwave will return with a vengeance to cook me in my skin in a sweat box of a shop wearing a mask all day. Sigh.

In other news, I finally received the bill for my car from the garage. They had said the worse-case scenario was £500 so I was braced for that but was hoping it would be less. Nope. £497.99!

Now it’s 10:15am on Saturday morning. We are leaving in precisely one hour’s-time and I am still sitting here with wet hair, no make-up on, in my jeans, with no clue what to put on. It’s grey, wet, and miserable so the powder blue dress is definitely a no. I guess I’d better close now and see what can be found.

Sorry, it’s a shorter blog this week, but you can see how my time has been spent and that I was lucky I managed to carve an hour out of this morning to say hi there, and get you up-to-date with how my week has been.

Take care, and I look forward to chatting with you all next week.

Additional: I didn’t have time to post this last night so it’s now Sunday morning. The day heated up a little bit more yesterday, so I said – “sod it” – and wore the black linen dress with bare legs and my sandals. Even though it was raining on and off, it was a muggy, oppressive day so I was warm enough and being just in the car and then in the restaurant I stayed dry.

Lunch was lovely. Miss F is certainly lucky to have found such a nice part-time job and everyone seemed very pleased to see her. She begins working again next week and I am relieved that she not only kept her job, but that she’ll finally have a reason to leave the house two or three times a week. Apart from a handful of occasions, she hasn’t left the house since mid-March and I don’t think that’s very good for her.

What with her college recommencing in a couple of weeks-time and her work placement beginning, things look to be getting back to normal for her. I really hope we don’t all go back into lockdown!

Anyway, that’s really it now, so speak next week.

Julia Blake

This week will be a brief catch up as I am inundated with things to do and, as usual, I don’t have enough time to do it all in. After an incredibly busy two days at work Monday and Tuesday, during which we had non-stop customers and I smashed my week’s sales target out of the park. The temperature began to climb and another heatwave was predicted for the UK – just to remind all my non-UK friends – we don’t have air conditioning so a heatwave here is a real heatwave that we all suffer without the respite of having air-conditioned homes and work places.

By Tuesday afternoon it was becoming unbearably hot at work and we were all suffering in the masks that the company now makes us wear. I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved to walk out of the shop and rip that damn mask off so I could breathe properly.

Wednesday, Miss F was going for a full day’s try out at the doggie day care centre she had applied to for a work placement for college. As she is training to be a zookeeper and is currently halfway through a two-year animal management course at our local college, she has to find so many hours voluntary work in an animal-based environment in order to complete her course.

This is harder than it sounds. We only live in a small town and the number of suitable placements available is sparse. Bear in mind there are over 150 other students on similar courses all looking for exactly the same placement, and you can see how it’s a nerve-wracking time trying to find something.

She got lucky last year. Someone she knew at college happened to mention that there was a space going at the stable and dog breeding farm she had her placement at. Miss F telephoned the farmer, was interviewed over the phone, and a week later was invited to go for a day’s trial.

She got the position, and we were very relieved she had. The only downside was that it was in the village of Keddington which is about a 45 minute drive away and as Miss F of course isn’t old enough yet to drive, that meant that I was having to drive her out there for a nine o’clock start every Friday, then driving myself home. She needed picking up at 2pm, so of course that was another double journey for me. So, for almost a year, I was spending three hours of my precious day-off in the car running her about.

But it had to be done, and that’s what you do when you’re a parent, and I was prepared to do it for another year. However, the farm decided to scale back its operation and no longer needed volunteers so that left us trying to find her somewhere else.

I was quite keen for us to beat the rush and get something settled before the long summer holidays, so back at the beginning of March I was urging her to press her placement officer at the college to give her some suggestions of where she could apply.

He gave her the name and email address of a doggie creche in town where people can drop off their dogs for the day while they are at work. With me urging her, Miss F reached out to them by email and had a lovely reply congratulating her on her forward thinking and inviting her for an interview a couple of weeks later.

But fate, or rather Corona, intervened. We went into lockdown a week later and she was unable to attend the interview. Of course, emails went back and forth about this and she was told to get back in touch when the quarantine period was over.

Mid-June, when things were beginning to open back up again, I advised her to send a little re-connection email just reminding them of who she was and that she was still around and still interested in a placement. Again, emails went back and forth and it was agreed they would let her know when it was possible to go for an interview but if she hadn’t heard from them by mid-July to email and remind them.

My birthday is the 17^th of July, so it was easy for me to remember to remind Miss F to contact them when my birthday came and went with nothing from them. They invited her for an interview the last week of July, and then she went for a day long try out this Wednesday to see how she liked it, and I suppose, more importantly, to see how they liked her and to show them that she was up for the job.

She had to be there by 7:45am, which considering she has spent the last four months bumming around in the house with no need to be up before midday, came as a bit of a shock. I had made her lay out her clothes and pack her lunch the night before, but it was still a heavy eyed and grouchy teenager whom I drove across town and dropped off, with promises to be there at 4pm to collect her.

When I got home and closed the front door behind me, it suddenly struck me that I had the whole house to myself for the first time since early March!! Silence enveloped me and I could hear the voices in my head yelling to be heard. There was nothing else to do but switch on my laptop and write furiously on my latest work in progress which is now standing at a very respectable 35,000 words. Given that I’m aiming for a final count of about 100,000 words this puts me at a third of the way through, which I’m very happy about.

When I went to collect Miss F, it was a very sunburnt, grubby, and over the moon girl who jumped into the car. She’d had a wonderful day caring for 30 dogs, had got on with everyone, and, best of all, had been offered the placement.

They had told her that usually they have between twenty to thirty applicants, but because Corona had happened so early in the year, no other students had thought to apply. It was only because I’d urged Miss F to badger her placement officer for likely places she could apply to, and then encouraged her to be proactive in asking for an interview, staying in touch, and building up a connection with them, that she got not only an interview but the offer of the placement as well.

It just goes to show, the early bird really does get the worm!

That night to celebrate her achievement and the 5605 words I had written, we had a takeaway from a new restaurant in town which was surprisingly delicious and tasted very fresh and well cooked.

Thursday, I worked some more on my story, caught up on laundry, and tackled my ironing pile which had been steadily growing in the corner of my room until it was practically waist high! I managed to get half of it done – better than nothing.

I had a bit of bad news last week – well, not so much bad news as annoying and inconvenient news. Our lodger of eighteen months handed in his notice. Apparently, he has a girlfriend he’s now very serious about and they wish to move in together. He has paid up until the end of August but says he will probably move out mid-month, and then I’ll have the usual arse ache of trying to replace him.

I hate looking for a new lodger. Honestly, you just get one house trained and then they’re off and you have to start all over again. The room will need to be freshened up and put into perfect order for viewings. I will need to re-activate my add on the letting website I use. Then there’s arranging viewings and vetting all the potential candidates.

It’s a painful and stressful process at the best of times, but quite how it’s going to work at the moment I’m not sure. I guess masks will need to be worn during viewings, which is awkward because I rely on lot on gut instinct when choosing whom should live in our home. If I can’t see their facial expressions that will make things harder.

It’s also financially stressful. I do rely on the rental income to pay my mortgage so when it takes several weeks to find someone suitable it can be a little worrying. But we have been taking in lodgers for over fifteen years now and have always managed to find someone, so I’m sure this time will be no different.

This particular lodger has been alright in some ways and a bit of a pain in the bum in others. I never normally accept night workers. I have no wish to be woken up at silly o’clock as they slam the front door coming home from work, and then having to keep the house completely silent for them all day because they’re sleeping. I did question him during the viewing and he reassured me he was an evening not a night worker, but either that was a lie or he considered an evening to extend to 3am, because from the moment he moved in he was working nights. He told us not to worry about keeping quiet because he was a heavy sleeper, so sometimes days would pass without us ever catching sight of him.

We had teething problems with him. Like the night I was woken up by him coming in, then thirty minutes later I heard him go back out again. Thoroughly awake and thirsty, I got up to get some water from the kitchen and discovered my front door standing wide open at 3am! Given that we are in the centre of town and are on the main route home from the clubs and pubs, I was not very impressed by this.

He brought a bike with him when he moved in, which has stood in my tiny garden the whole time he has lived here and hasn’t been touched once! Damn thing is so in the way! If I stand it at the bottom of the garden, then my washing on the line blows over it and picks up dirt from it. If I stand it higher up on the pathway down the side of the house, we are forever catching ourselves on the handlebar because it sticks out so far. I will be very relieved to see the back of that!

He also does an inordinate amount of washing! For a guy who goes to work in a pair of overalls, sleeps all day, and when he does go out is clad only in shorts and a t-shirt, he is forever washing clothes! He uses the machine more than we do, and puts it on at odd hours so instead of hanging the washing out on the line to dry during all the months of gorgeous weather we have had, puts in in the tumble drier which eats electricity. So, that’s annoying.

My experiences with him have only served to reinforce my determination not to have a night worker again, and I will make sure in future that I question the candidates carefully as to their working hours, because it does matter. If someone is going to be banging into the house in the middle of the night, it will wake me up. My bed is directly over the front porch so when the front door is slammed – which it invariably will be – my whole bed shakes and I am shocked awake. I then can’t go back to sleep and unlike the lodger – who can then snore the rest of the day away – I still have to be up early for work.

There is also the fact that this person is going to be living in our home, so they need to be compatible with us and our lives. Men, especially, need to be thoroughly vetted. There is a 17-year-old girl living in this house. Very often she is alone here, so I need to know the person I allow to live here is trustworthy and decent.

I need to like them as well. This is not a massive house. We will run across them frequently in the kitchen and the sitting room they have access to, so they must be agreeable to live with. This is my home. It is my refuge and my haven. I cannot allow it to be tainted by a person who’s a nightmare to live with.

Friday, most of my day was spent doing an emergency proofread of a friend and fellow indie author’s new book. It’s due to be released next week and she’d asked me to arc read it, but I’d only got a couple of chapters in when I realised there were quite a few issues that she and her editor had missed. I was unsure what to do, but I figured she’d rather find out now from me, than publish and have readers tell her in reviews, so I contacted her and offered to read the rest as quickly as I could. In between reading, I wrote a book review, went to collect my hayfever meds, went to the PO, did some shopping, and wrote a few more words on my book. So, another busy day.

It continued to get hotter, and Friday and Saturday have been unbelievably hot and muggy. Stupidly, I had promised Miss F we would completely spring clean her bedroom, so for most of Saturday we were trapped in a small, hot room heaving furniture about, de-cobwebbing, dusting, sorting out, vacuuming, and rearranging. It was long overdue, and she really wanted it done before her birthday next week when she has friends coming over, but I seriously could have done without it. It also didn’t help that while I was sweating my nads off, she kept being distracted by her phone and finding any excuse not to help.

But it’s done, the room is at least now tidy and more importantly clean. What is it about teenagers? Why do they want their bedrooms to look like pigsties? I swear it must be a year since she last dusted in there, cobwebs were draped over everything and dust was an inch thick on every surface. Apart from looking disgusting, I’m sure it was a health risk.

And now it’s Saturday evening. I’ve showered, prepared dinner, and am finally able to sit down with a glass of wine and finish writing this. I have a real sense of catching up with things, of long-overdue jobs being finally ticked off the list. From the kitchen I can smell lamb kebabs grilling, and the fresh scent of mint from the pepper, pea, and potato salad I’ve made to go with them.

Yes, I’m back to work tomorrow, but I’m already through my target so that always eases the stress enormously. My blog is written. I’m up to date with my book reviews. I’ve written almost 10,000 words this week on my new book which I’m loving and am very excited about. I’ve received the first beta readers feedback on The Book of Eve ready to go through next Wednesday. And this week I have received a 4+ star review on at least one of my books every single day. I have wine, oh, and did I tell you that dinner is smelling really good.

Sometimes, it really is the little things.

Take care, and I look forward to chatting to you next week.

Julia Blake