Loyal reader, buckle up for an update on my cottage. Radio silence on this topic has been born out of sloth-like tendencies on the DIY front and there has been absolutely nothing to report. I have loved my cottage, lived in it and still view it as my sanctuary, but I have allowed myself to get distracted from the long snagging list of jobs I needed to complete when I took up residence over a year ago.

When I moved in to my des res and eventually unpacked the boxes and furniture that had been languishing in storage for far too long, it was like being reunited with old friends and I started to enjoy that catch up just a little bit too much. This is very unfortunate because my cottage is truly tiny, my furniture was purchased for a much larger residence and my book shelves are not designed to groan under the weight of books that I now refuse to part with .

Total charlatan that I am, I still tell friends how minimalist I have become on my journey since divorce.

In reality I have learned to live with cottage cosiness for clutter is nothing more than postponed decisions, and for once in my life there has been no rush and no-one to answer to. All that replastering, rewiring and repainting left me with no head space for domestic resolution. After moving in, when mum decided to get in on the act and almost selfishly decided to move postcode also, I found proper goodbyes impossible again and started sneaking some of her ‘stuff’ back into my cottage; my tiny kitchen scrunched up to embrace mum’s crockery and glassware. My walls attempted to accommodate mum’s paintings even though there was no space left on which to hang them.

Thankfully friends and family are very forgiving. Over time they have stopped asking me about DIY plans, or eulogising about the economies of Kindle over print. In fairness, they seem relieved that my enriched social life now means I am living across two postcodes, and they seem to have stopped worrying that I might sneak twenty cats into the cottage and forget to bathe.

However they have remained a little incredulous that I have had no curtains across my windows and have pondered how I have managed to sleep without bedroom blinds. I counter these passive aggressive enquiries with, ‘I did not pay a human ransom for this hill-top view just to block it out when the sun goes down,’ and, ‘when you live at the top of 30 steep steps, the prospect of a Peeping Tom minimises. My neighbour agrees with me; he tells me that he has lived in his cottage for over 20 years and that the only time he ever considers curtains – or even wearing pyjamas – is when the wind changes direction during the annual Bristol Balloon Festival.

If Favourite Daughter or Favourite Son sleep over at the cottage they smuggle in the odd eye mask or black out curtain. Himself says that he has always been afraid of the dark and that he likes my ‘openness’. I decide that it is perfectly normal to wake up at least four times each night and assert that I am delighted to earn my Blue Peter ‘Celestial Badge’ for the many sightings I made of that beautiful strawberry moon last week.

But then I get talking to our lovely ‘site man’ at work – I am not sure what his real title is but he is truly a god among men in an educational setting. He can fashion a cupboard out of an old exercise book, plaster a wall with old paper towels and even offer a Year 11 student direction by sending them up a ladder and teaching them how to use a spirit level. He salvaged a whole meeting room table and chairs out of a skip for my office saying ‘these chairs may wobble but they won’t fall down’ (Yes, he even knows which advertising textual references are age appropriate).

‘Have you hung those curtains yet?’ he asks. He knows about my DIY list for he furnished me with a hammer and picture hooks when I first moved into the cottage.

‘I do not own any tools, as well you know, ‘ I remind him. ‘I traded the Black ‘n’ Decker DIY bench and power drill for 10 boxes of fiction in the divorce settlement’

He knows I am lying. If I had to borrow a hammer to hang my pictures, he will not be fooled that I will recognise a drill if I see one.

‘I am off on holiday for three weeks’, he says, ‘come and find me on Friday and I will leave my masonry drill, a pot of screws and a pile of raw plugs with you while I am away’. Temptress. He ignores my vacant look and surely realises that I show more interest in his holiday destination than I do in his carbide tipped drill heads.

‘You can do this’, he assures me. ‘I will show you how’. As he walks back to his workshop I think I hear him mutter, ‘surely even she can find an appropriate Youtube tutorial and – if all else fails – we pray that she is now dating a man who is nifty with a step ladder.’

Reader, let us draw this blog to a close. Truth be told, I did little more than carry the masonry drill up the 30 steps to my cottage and rediscover my step ladder at the weekend, but after two days of making encouraging noises and some excellent coffee, I am now the proud owner of hanging curtains . In my latest journey of discovery I have learnt:

• A sharp 2B pencil is less messy than an old lipstick when marking up a wall.
• A spirit level may need to be my next investment – thankfully everything in the cottage is wonky, so a curved curtain rail is perfectly in keeping, but it would be nice to know that I can level up if needed.
• I can iron curtains, and I can drive to B&Q – if I can learn to count more accurately, one trip to B&Q should suffice – on this occasion one trip did not furnish the requisite number of curtain rings and I had to return. (I had the good sense to leave Himself measuring up another wall and counting out the raw plugs in my absence).
• I am easily distracted – however this means I return from the second trip to B&Q with a lovely hanging basket. I think I may be falling back in love with my garden again so this is a double win.
• I can hang curtains and it turns out that I love all that faffing around with curtain tape and drapes – mum would be so proud.

Do the curtains make a difference? They do indeed. I wish I had pulled myself together much, much earlier, but then I would not be so ridiculously excited about the difference soft furnishings are making in my life. We (I say ‘we’ because I held the ladder) moved on to put up a second set of curtains in the living room and I had to be restrained from visiting B&Q for a third time, being told by Himself that it would be greedy to buy a third curtain pole in one weekend (#heneededanap). In all likelihood I will never draw my living room curtains for the view beyond the window is the reason I bought this cottage in the first place, but it is good to know that I have the capacity to do so should I ever wish to shut out the world, start a cattery and/or stop bathing.

I had best get on. Our lovely site man returns to school in three weeks and he is expecting the return of his tool kit. Before then I hope to knock up a new book case and fashion a kitchen shelf on which to display mum’s wine glasses. Cheers to that; time for this home owner to pull herself together at last.