Happy Monday!

This is my last week in Surbiton, however the work on the flat is still not finished (the plaster hasn’t dried and so the work on the kitchen hasn’t begun).  I had said that I wanted to be back in the flat for 25 February, it’s been four weeks and I’m just done with this. Did you know that in this country, even though I can’t live in the flat, I still have to pay rent and that the landlord is under no obligation to compensate me or find me somewhere else to live. If I don’t pay rent, I can be evicted but if I can’t use what I pay for there’s no penalty for the landlord. I could ask him to compensate me, I could take him to small claims court but then he could just evict me with no fault. Welcome to the 21^st Century and the rentier economy. Something needs to change, I know the Tories won’t do anything and I doubt Labour would either. Look, I know that my landlord is a decent person but my housing, shouldn’t be at the whim of a someone deciding to be decent, there should be protections for landlords and tenants. Robust protections. Yes the work will be lovely but it’s costing me and it’s costing my mum (I have offered her money but we’re going to work it out in a series of dinners!)

Rant over, this week I’ll be in the office and living at Mum’s, at the weekend, I’ll move back into my flat but for at least a week, it’ll be like camping, I won’t have a kitchen and most of my furniture will still be in the living room, but I’ll be able to get on with painting the bedroom. Then next week, I can start returning it to somewhere I can comfortably live in. I’m sure it will eventually be lovely but it still feels like there is a long way from here to there!

So what am I planning for this week? The same thing, I plan for every week. Work, home, sleep, don’t annoy Mum. Also Lent starts this week, so I would like to go and get ashed. It’s funny most people who aren’t regular churchgoers, turn up at Christmas, but it’s the Easter services that get me back into a church, this year, the easiest church to do that in, is St Paul’s cathedral, so that will be interesting.

Wednesday is also the start of me giving up biscuits, crisps, sweets and chocolate I started doing this in 2019 and it’s never as hard as I expect and a really good reset on what I should be eating. Also for Lent, I’d like to get into the habit of doing the Examen. For a few years, I’ve posted about Lent and my faith during Lent, this is a heads up that I’ll do some of that this year and probably on Sundays, so if it’s not your thing, just don’t read them. I won’t mind and I’ll get back to whittering on about work, home and the allotment as usual during the weekday posts.

Have a good week!