Most of March has been hell-month, there have been times where I have truly felt at the edges of my sanity (crying in the shower, talking to myself, muscle twitches, hyperventilating etc) but IT IS ALL OKAY NOW :)
The additional context not neccesarily visible in these visual diaries is that at the very end of February I handed in my notice at Geeks For Social Change, the tech studio where I work 1 – 2 days a week. I love the work we do there, and have learned so much since I started working there in 2021, but for much of the time I've worked there (but especially the last 6 months or so), it has been the most stressful job I do (and have ever done?!) — the 'wake up at 4am thinking about it' / 'working out of hours' / 'camera and mic off in meetings to take some deep breaths' job. I stayed so long because... I believed it could get better? I wanted to make it work? It has been quite hard to pinpoint the exact tangle of reasons WHY working there is so stressful, but I realised over the last couple of months that it was causing me quite profound harm to remain (I'm not exercising, I'm not eating well, I'm miserable, I'm not taking care of myself, I'm not seeing friends enough or being a very good friend etc). So, I quit!
However, during my time there I put my fingers into a lot of pies, and unpicking that over the last month has been. Challenging. All while (as you will read) surrounded by a lot of dust and INCREDIBLY LOUD NOISE.
Anyway, I am still working out my notice (I will likely stay until the end of April), but simply knowing I am leaving has alleviated a lot of the stress, and the immediate repercussions of my departure have mostly played out in the earlier part of this month, I hope?! (I'm not even saying a full goodbye as I do still hope to stay on in a vague collaborative/freelance capacity too).
Anyway, I AM enjoying my PGCert (teaching qualification). I handed in my first unit's submission mid way through March and am currently tensely awaiting my grade! During this session, we all had to roleplay as different types of tutor and student. I was the bad guy :)
As part of my ongoing attempts to maintain morale this month in particular, I've been making a more proactive attempt to get out of the house and see friends. It was lovely to get some pizza with Zoë, and go to the British Museum (which I have never been to before, in part because it's problematic and in part because I'm a bit 'History? Whatever'). But I did very much enjoy looking at some cool Japanese stuff and hanging out with my friend.
The rewire of our flat commenced right at the end of February. My partner went away for the duration, because the amount of upheaval and dust would have been too much for them. I however am a trash gremlin and can (thought I could) handle it. And someone needed to stay and shunt all our possessions from room to room to allow the electricians to work. (For anyone who might be needing to rewire, here's my top tip: save up an additional couple of grand above and beyond the cost of the work, pay removal guys and put all your stuff in storage, and go on fucking holiday. DO NOT do what I did and stay, with all your stuff. The reason I did not do this is because we were told our electrics were actively unsafe, and I didn't have time to save up EVEN MORE — I already had to take a loan from my parents to pay the SEVEN GRAND this cost)
Anyway, my partner came back briefly at the weekend. At this point things weren't even too bad! The workmen had been at work an entire week but (for some reason?!?!) had only thus far tackled the kitchen. Nonetheless, most of the house was covered in dust, with the exception of the two bedrooms and bathroom, which have closable doors.
I set my students a stupid warmup creative task of drawing a house with 100 different rooms in it. They were surprisingly bad at it. Didn't everyone do this as a kid?!?!
I pre-emptively invited my friend Alex over for dinner for a rewire morale boost (and by chance, my partner had to pop back that evening too). We got takeaway and watched Gladiators (I love gladiators). (Retrospectively I should have invited him a week or two later as I was comparatively unstressed at this point)
While the electricians drilled holes in walls in the rest of the flat, my bedroom remained my increasingly encroached upon safe place. Non-dusty (ish), less noisy (ish), surrounded by as many of my possessions and furniture as could be squeezed in. A suboptimal working environment when everything is falling apart, tbh
My days teaching were a real respite from house hell this month (not to mention what was going on at GFSC). We've been teaching our students about prototyping, so we had them all make, and then improve paper aeroplanes (I promise I do teach them serious stuff as well). They made so many different kinds of plane!
By this point I was getting pretty worried. We were two weeks into the rewire (which they told me would only take... two weeks) and they were still only in the kitchen. The kitchen is the hardest room I guess? Okay sure?! But... I want my flat back?! I want all my stuff back? If I'd paid two guys to make as much dust as possible I'd have to applaud them, but the actual electrical progress seemed... alarmingly slow.
And because my partner was away, I was going a bit stir crazy in the house alone, so again I made an effort to see people — a catchup with my old uni friends Lucy and Lyall during the day (Lucy is pregnant!! Exciting and terrifying!!) Then in the evening, hopped over to New Cross for my friend Ellis' birthday do with a big gang of cool people.
For most of the work thus far, I'd had no electricity in the kitchen, but the electricians had kept the lights and power on in the rest of the house. At this juncture, it switched. The kitchen was complete, so I had lights and power there, but no light or power in the rest of the flat at all. (I ran an extension lead from the kitchen to keep a lamp on in the evenings, and my laptop and phone charging). Sunday decided to be VERY GREY AND DARK all day, as if to rub in that I had no lights. (Another rewire tip, definitely do not do this in winter if you plan to stay in the house)
Sob
This was one of the worst days. I did my Samaritans shift early (7 – 10am) and when I got back the electricians had started work in the bedroom (without telling me they were going to), so all my 'safe' bedroom stuff was already covered in orange brick dust. I had to rapidly dust sheet and decant into the office (which is the box room). I'd closed the office blind before the rewire started, and stacked loads of stuff up against the window, and at this point pretty much everything was crammed into this room. I had to wedge myself in (literally, it was barely possible to squeeze myself in), and proceeded to take some of the most difficult meetings of my career so far with constant drilling in the background, in darkness. (I met a lovely client later in the afternoon who rightly laughed heartily at my predicament). (Another rewire tip — if you work from home, maybe find a co-working space?!?! I did not do this because the only local co-working space I am aware of doesn't allow you to take meetings, and my work at GFSC is frankly, mostly meetings. I don't really mind meetings but it had started to feel a bit like groundhog day.)
HAHAHAHA this was the bit where the electrician finally, bedgrudingly admitted that my flat is a hell flat and he had not expected it to take this long, and he was thoroughly miserable as well. There are way too many beams!! The walls are weirdly constructed!! (They had to make WAY MORE holes than they should have done to get the wires through) AND FOR SOME REASON during the original construction of the house, the builders decided to lay around an inch thick layer of LOOSE DRY SAND in the ceiling, for... soundproofing?!?! The electrician said in 20 years of electricianing he'd never seen anything like it. So now as well as being covered in brick dust, everything is also covered in sand?!! So much SAND?!?! fine fine fine
IT'S BAD!!
One of my clients invited me to go out to this teambuilding exercise with them, which involved going to some posh french ladies' flat in West Kensington and learning about climate change. It was really fun, really refreshing, and they fed me lots of beautiful fresh fruit, which (having been mostly living on microwave meals and supermarket sandwiches due to kitchen hell situation) was extremely helpful
(Climate change is bad though, this is the main takeaway here, although it was hard for the main takeaway to not be 'wasn't it nice to eat some fresh fruit and leave the house')
At this point the electricians needed to be EVERYWHERE (it turned out my idea of always having at least one room as a 'clean/functional' zone was deluded) so I simply LEFT and went to visit my friend Heidi and stay with my parents overnight. (At this point the electricians so desperately wanted to leave, they were working through the whole weekend)
Got back to SO MUCH MESS (I thought the plasterer coming to fill the holes would be the bit where I'd feel better but it turns out he's really messy too, who knew) — but the end is nigh. THE END IS NIGH
And lo, there is power, and light, and I can finally commence with the BIG CLEAN...
...And also get my partner back (they said I was 'a bit weird' from the stress)
To reassert my love for this flat (which I do love, despite everything), we mowed our lawn for the first time. (We have a massive front garden which the leasehold contract demands we maintain as 'lawn' — given free rein we'd definitely do something more interesting with it, but oh well, we do have the back garden to get creative with)
Is it blood orange season?! I can only assume not, as this one was beautiful but not very nice
My partner threw themselves into domesticity by doing loads of delicious cooking
While I furiously continued cleaning with my faithful companion Henry (whose insides are decidedly fucked at this point I fear)
My spirits are also lifting because it finally feels like spring!
Me and my (soon to be former) GFSC colleague (and hopefully continuing to be friend) Katja went to a 'designing with care' workshop, which was lovely (and I learned lots of pass on to my students!)
And then, BIRTHDAY! I decided one of the nicest things I could do for myself was continue my hiking voyage around the London Loop. As luck would have it, one of my closest friends Davey was in town (which really is luck, because Davey lives in Montana!) — so he joined me for the hike. Then in the evening, my partner took me out for fancy vegan thai (and then I went to bed at 8 and played video games, because 36 is tiring apparently)
I had to work a bit the day after my birthday, but I'd booked the week off GFSC ages ago, and it's easter hols for teaching, so I've only had my freelance clients (plus a little bit of teaching prep) to work on this week. That meant time for IKEA!!!
Then, it was time to head to York, to see Justin, Dav, and Davey (again, yay!) As THE WHOLE GANG (from late Hebden Bridge days) AND my partner were hanging out, we booked an airbnb for me, my partner and Davey, so as not to overwhelm Justin and Dav's hospitality. We still spent lots of time at their house though, and briefly stole a neighbour's (enthusiastic) cat.
My partner's mum and gran live in nearby Sherburn-in-Elmet, so we took some time out to visit them, and the very picturesque church where some of their other family are buried.
Then the next day, we got the train out to Saltburn-by-the-Sea, as I wanted to visit the coast. It was SO NICE, I got to tick another pier off my 'visit all the piers' bucket list, and we had chips and enjoyed climbing up high on the cliffs.
