tell me why I don't like Tuesdays

I'm dreading tomorrow. I have to get up at the proverbial crack of dawn, share a crowded train with a bunch of disgruntled commuters, schlep over to the absolute opposite end of Paris to sit with a book designer and input all the corrections to the text of the book I just translated, try to find my about-to-be eleven year old son a birthday present that he will like and yet that does not correspond to what he actually wants (his own computer - why do children grow out of lego? And what do we give them for their birthdays during the period that ends with them rediscovering how great it is, cf Michael Borowitz?), pick up tile samples (how can something like unbevelled metro tiles be so hard to locate in this city?), rush back to my house to be bollocked...

Way back when, oooh, at least a month ago, I found someone to replace my windows in a way that seemed to respect the house. All that was great, except that inadvertently I upset my lovely Monsieur G, who was fully intending to do it himself, albeit not very well nor very cheaply. I was nice but firm, because it is after all my house, but I could tell that I had really offended him, and he was making quite an effort not to be shirty with me. He found a subtle way to be shirty with me after all though, and it's all coming out now. The Window Man called me on Saturday to ask for a meeting with Monsieur G to talk about the mess that they are going to make when they put the windows in. I transmitted the message only to receive a sulky earful in return, insisting that he didn't want to meet the Window Man, that the mess was their problem, and by extension mine, but certainly not his, and that if I insisted on being ripped off by some shyster I would have to sort the problem out myself. It took all my reserves of niceness to pacify him but this I fear will run and run....

I have managed to order taps and paint in England. Unbelievably noone in France has even heard of Vola. I got so fed up I just ordered them from a shop in Primrose Hill. C will be driving a car back loaded with the equivalent of four baby elephants (enough paint for the whole house, three lights, a chair and six taps). I can't quite say vive the falling pound, since I'm not exactly going to be unaffected, but at least we are squeezing something positive out of the imminent global recession.