Bums the first: the witchling woke up at about 4.30, and basically didn’t go back to sleep because she appeared to be uncomfortable in some way. I’m not sure what that way was, of course, but there was something not right – every time she drifted off, it lasted about fifteen minutes or so, and then she was awake again, and not very happy about it. Not in a screaming-the-place-down way; more a ‘please make this go away! I would really like to sleep now!’. This, coupled with a similar experience the night before (with the difference that that was 3.30), means I am a bit flat today.

Bums the second: one of our newly-installed rooflights is leaking. The water has run down from one corner and all along the new plaster. I really hope nothing dreadful is going on there; to be honest, at the moment, it feels like we are running on empty and have very few resources to draw on, both mental and financial.

Bums the third: I keep realising anew that next May should see me return to work, leaving the witchling… well, I don’t quite know where. It’s playing on my mind already; for so long, I have wanted to find That Thing That I Am Supposed To Do, For Work, instead of This Thing, Which Will Do For Now, and this has made that sense of something being not quite right all the stronger. I don’t know how I will manage to work this one out, if indeed I will, but I realise that I probably need rather more sleep than I am currently managing in order to work anything out at all, as demonstrated by the rather moronic hit-and-miss experiences I am having with CSS at present.

Bums the fourth: I may be hacked off about work, but times it by about a thousand and you have the current work-related emotions of, er, that person of the male gender who is as yet unnamed in this forum.

Bums the fifth: there is really a lot left to do on the extension. The external walls desperately need the Heraklith boarding which will finish them off, as well as a coat or two of render; the bathroom needs tiling; the floor needs grouting throughout; the wiring needs finishing off; the attic space needs boxing in properly; the airing cupboard needs… er… to exist; we need something beyond a scout-hut-style kitchen, with, preferably, more than one cupboard, and a cooker which doesn’t consist of two rings, an oven which stops one (I can never remember which) of the rings working, and a grill which stops both working; the roof needs flashing adding; the windows need catches fitting; the backdoor has a hole in it for the cats to get in and out, and doesn’t even nearly fit as it’s the old backdoor, and rotten as a pear. And that’s before I even think about what’s left on the house as a whole. The windows need work, fairly urgently. The render is cracked, and, being cement-based, doesn’t allow the cob beneath to breathe, which means the house is still damp, despite our being fervent window-openers, and despite the presence of the (All Hail!) woodstove (though the latter does help, very much so).

Bums the sixth: it’s over two weeks since my viva, and I haven’t even looked at the corrections I have to do. My deadline for these, if I want to make the winter graduation ceremony (not that I intend to go, but I would like to get this finished before Christmas), is December 15. That sounds like ages, until you think I haven’t managed to read the examiners’ report yet, and I’ve had it for fifteen days.

You know sometimes, when you just think, ‘arghhhhh’? Well, I suppose this may just be one of those days.