Get a trade, young man!

Knew I should have trained as a plumber. Or an electrician.

It seems that skilled tradesmen of that kind have so much work available these days that they barely even need to own a telephone, never mind advertise their services.

One of the great plans when we moved into ‘the village’ was that the brick shed would be converted into an office. This would then become the throbbing heart of my writing empire, a fortress of solitude from whence I could churn out works of wonder and delight in peace and uninterrupted concentration.

What actually happened was we just chucked a load of junk in there, and now you can’t even step inside. However, we did manage to get it dry-lined and painted, so all that’s needed now is electricity. A simple matter, you would think. After all, the shed is about 4 feet diagonally from the back of the house.

But oh, no. This is an insurmountable problem for the simple fact that we can’t get an electrician to so much as look at it. Well, that’s not strictly true. One turned up, said he give us a quote, then vanished never to be seen again. One came round recently, but seems to have misunderstood our requirements, since the figure he’s quoting would be sufficient to build a new house, from the ground up, and wire it with gold cable. Three other electricians who were approached didn’t answer their phones or reply to messages left for them.

By the time I get my office, it will be winter and I will be tapping away at my keyboard in fingerless gloves, wearing my entire wardrobe of jumpers.