Forwards and occasionally sidewards – everyday musings of life

Hello everyone,

It has been quite a week on the blog. We moved from the delicate physics of interior decoration to the grand completion of our 78-day home renovation—punctuated by a sneaky suspicion that our new heating system is spying on us.

Here is a recap of what went down this week:

• The Quantum Mechanics of Hanging a Bathroom Picture: The perilous art of driving a nail into a freshly plastered wall without destroying the subfloor or triggering a domestic crisis.
• Enigma, Monastic Flooring, and Coming Out as a Penhold Player: In which silent LVT fitters double as local crop-circle artists, Gregorian chants fill the hallway, and I make a public confession to my table tennis coach about my new playing grip.
• Rainfall, Chainsaws, and the Final Tile: Marking 78 days of continuous house renovation. The dust has finally settled, the tradesmen have departed, and my toolbox is officially retiring to the shed to rust in peace.
• Quiet Houses, Pension Calls, and the Heat Pump Cyber Threat: The strange silence of a post-renovation house, urgent pension trustee business, and why I’m convinced our new garden heat pump is secretly transmitting our hot water data directly to Beijing.

Thank you, as always, for reading along!

Best,

Mark