Midnight last night found M outside up a ladder puttying windows by the beam of a floodlight, and me inside, right arm fused to the vacumn cleaner as it sucked down every little bug from the ceiling of nine rooms. Nine rooms. Then I had to do the floor and paint all the bits that needed it - which I had never noticed until I began looking at the house in the way I thought a valuer might look. Closely. At 1am I moved on to cleaning the bathroom and M came inside. By 1.30am we both admitted that we could no longer continue and carked it, in our unusually clean bedroom. Five hours later we were up and at it again. I painted five window frames, carefully avoiding the glass (some of them don’t have have glass, which made it easier). M tidied up all the crud outside the house, by pushing it all underneath the house and then fixed bits and pieces, whippersnipped and generally was a cleaning demon. Meanwhile my right arm became fused to the mop for two hours. Finally, after we had scrambled into some clothes that didn’t scream “Everything about this house is totally DIY”, the valuers turned up.

M kept a fairly low profile, and I didn’t introduce him as then I would have had to say his name - which they then might have twigged as being the same name that was on the invoice that I’d faxed them - as the contractor who had done all the work. The valuers were an extremely nice couple - who had saved my arse a year ago when the bank threatened to kill the house deal over the small matter of my intent to pull down the carport. They wandered around the house. The woman said “I smell paint.” I shrugged bashfully, and explained that once I knew they were coming I’d run around an made some small repairs. I did not add that we’d actually been running around for twelve months. After peering at everything and discussing with me that they would have actually bought this house because it had so much potential - we walked them to the gate. They were happy. It was all fine. And if this doesn’t happen again for as long as I live, I will be happy too. I have had two cups of coffee this year - one today and one yesterday, and have become a strange mixture of flop and bursts of un-focused energy. Time for a nice lie down.

Thank god they never asked if the cooktop actually does anything other than look good - we’re still using our camp stove, but we hid it.