Then there’s a few weeks catching up with the housekeeping as it’s all I can do normally, as a single parent with two kids in an too-large house to keep up with disinfecting, shopping, washing, etc. Notice the absence of cleaning from the list. I have a scheme. Every three months I call an industrial cleaning company and claim that tenants have just moved out, which is cheaper and way more convenient than having a cleaner come in every few days. (My job, of course, takes me to plenty of places where tenants really have just moved out, and trust me, we’re actually way cleaner than most.) And, by the way, if you haven’t read the book or seen the film about Simon Carr’s odd take on life as a single parent (The Boys Are Back), I recommend them.

Then there’s been a week of frantic catching up. The cat won’t let us out of its sight at the moment.

And frantic catching up isn’t helped by nuisance calls, which mostly still seem to be from BT’s CustomerStreet. I wish the OFT would hurry up and do whatever it is they are going to do about these pests.

When you ring a tradesperson from the office, you might consider whether of not your call will show up as “Number Withheld”. A sole trader who’s at the end of their tether over nuisance calls might be tempted to let “Number Withheld”s go to voicemail.

The previous post began the story of my re-arranging the locks on my front door. The mortice lock I was adding had a thumbturn on the inside. When I go out during the night or early in the morning, leaving the rest of the family asleep, I’d like to lock the door behind me. But you shouldn’t do that with an ordinary mortice lock like a Chubb because of the fire risk. So my new mortice lock would have a key on the outside and a thumbturn on the inside. (Naturally we can do the same for your door.)

But a thumbturn near a letterslot brings an obvious risk. So I thought about letterboxes and slot cowls. Then I remembered a story from an inventors’ web site: the Homeguard Mailguard. This is a smart bag that’s fitted over the letterslot. It keeps your mail from gathering in a large pile on the floor — a dead giveaway if you’re on holiday, it keeps your mail away from the peanut-brained dog, it means you don’t have to bend down to collect your mail, it stops fishing for keys or thumbturns, and should anything incendiary arrive through the slot the bag’s material stifles the flames.

And, naturally, we can fit one for you as well.