So far we have been incredibly impressed with the contractors on site here. Almost every single one of them will smile at you in the street and say ‘hello’, and most ask how our house is and if we have any problems. The electrician has gone out of his way to resolve some problems with our telephone wiring, and one of the dumper truck drivers even stopped to change the tyre on our car when my wife arrived home with a puncture the other day (I was cowering indoors to avoid having to do the job myself). I don’t know whether the credit should go to Bloor for having such a friendly work environment or to the individual contractors involved, but we have certainly been very pleased with the service.

We’ve had friends staying with us for most of this week, so the house has pretty much remained in the same state with one room full of junk but all of the others quite tidy and organised. The plumber has been out to sort a few snags (including a very wonky radiator), and the kitchen company are due on Monday. We decided against having the extra TV cables retro-fitted to our lounge, but managed to negotiate a few small extras from the electrician instead. We now have a double outdoor power socket in the garden and we had all of the hallway low energy light fittings replaced with standard ones. We are still using energy saving light bulbs but at least we can now use standard lamp shades – the low energy fittings have a broader neck that is completely incompatible with most shades.

We still have no broadband internet, but I have figured out how to connect my mobile phone to my laptop for limited, albeit extremely slow, web browsing. In other technology news, our Sky installation took place on Thursday and we had a great pair of guys who did a superb job of hooking a new dish up to existing cables in the roof. I’d heard horror stories of some sky engineers refusing to go into lofts or refusing the use existing wiring, so it really was great to have such a positive and willing pair of guys.

It’s back to work on Monday after 2 weeks off, but at least I have breakfast with The Greatest Toaster in the Entire Universe to look forward to. Not even Jennifer Lopez could bring a smile to my face in the morning with such regularity.