Day 8: I Have A New Extractor Fan, Shower Head and Hot Water Tap, And My Floorboard Is Turned Round

No time to lose. Feeling sorry for yourself doesn't get much done, does it? Allow yourself a short period of mourning, acknowledge that the Black Dog may snap sharply at your ankles, see your friends, and note how blue the sky is today. And if that fails, attend to minor DIY tasks you have been putting off since 1903.

Call 0800 Handyman. They're the best. They come and like, do stuff for you. All the things you haven't done because you don't know how, or can't be arsed. Write a list. Phone them up. Tell them what's on the list. Then a man comes with toolboxes, on a motorbike, drinks water and DOES IT ALL while you lie on the sofa drinking tea and shouting 'twat!' sporadically as you read the Guardian Media 100 List. Scan the Jobs section. Sigh. (Do I want to be a marketing communications manager for the North London NHS Trust? No I do not. Do you know who I am?) Then start talking to the Man With The Toolbox.

Me: Do we need a bit of wood for that?
Don: Yes we do.
Me: Shall I go and get one? There's a wood yard thing on Acre Lane.
Don: Yes. You need 18mm thick pine, a bit about (waves hands like has caught 5lb salmon) so big. The, er, timber yard will have it.
Me: OK. Anything else?
Don: Well I might need a bit for the tap.
Me: Just phone me then and I'll get it.
Don: (Squints, looks at me as if I am drunk and/or mad) You won't get that in a timber yard.
Me: (Startled) No! No! There's a ... plumbing shop across the road.
Don: Plumbing Supplies Merchant?
Me: Yes, that one. Yes. Tea?
Don: Water.
Me: OK.

Now, it transpires that Don has a degree in PPE from Oxford. He's about 50. He used to work in the public sector. Before that he was a social worker, and before that an RAF pilot. He taught himself how to do DIY and now he has a carefree life, motorcycling around and mending things and making things better. He makes people happy. He is not stuck in an office. He does what he pleases. When he puts the toolboxes away in the garage at the end of the day, he doesn't think about work anymore.

Where I live has the same name as a poem by Keats, and after he'd packed up his bags and stopped being so glum, and as he was walking out of the door, he started quoting it:

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing...

Then he said, that's what your flat should be like, Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing, smiled and left. I love Don a bit.