Welcome to my perfumed garden

So why are we both so shattered?

Made an early start - moved all the furniture and gubbins out of the kitchen. Made a little workstation in the still-stripped-out sitting room so we can continue to eat and make tea while the kitchen's wet/dusty/manky/filled with noxious chemical fumes.

Went to bloody BIG! B&Q in Bamber Bridge this time for all our housely needs. Still couldn't get a light for the stairs though; their lighting designers really don't account for tall people living under low ceilings. ::sigh:: Side trips to Matalan and Aldi took us into rush hour but hey ho the nonny, we're home at last, showered, with cups of espresso, camped in the bedroom. I have cooked sauce for pasta so dinner is only ever going to be 10 minutes away. I has Steve Coogan and Richard Ayoade DVDs. There is chocolate and wine.

The Caroline Dawnay Agency email to tell me they don't want my book yet the most awful rubbish continues to get published. Am I the only person in the English speaking world that hates The Time-Traveler's Wife? I admit, I've only read the first eighty pages but so far it seems the most awful load of arse. The two main characters are so bloody unbelievable, so utterly, utterly perfect - He with his musician parents and erudite bookshelves, she, so tall and slender with her red-gold hair and pale skin and childhood home full of stereotype servants - she just screams Mary Bloody Sue to me and the style - the writing style seems so stilted and turgid; it reads like the author read some of the best pre-war authors and decided she could write a book Just Like Theirs.

I'm prepared to believe it gets better as the book goes on. It has to (doesn't it?) Because otherwise the glowing reviews that led me to read this tripe are just puzzling. I shall persist (though at the moment I want to fling the thing through a window).

La di da. Life continues to amaze me with its mysteries. I have Californian Shiraz, I have little crunchy, oaty things. I have cheesy crisps and damn fine comedy on DVD and a whole evening free to enjoy them. ::comforts self with this knowledge::