Home working

I am writing this sitting perched on a high kitchen stool, my left ear assailed by the steady slosh slosh sound of the washing machine while my right is receiving the full force nine gale from the tumble dryer. The coffee machine is doing a passable imitation of the 10:15 leaving Kings Cross Station and the contents of the oven (a garlic and rosemary stuffed leg of lamb) is making me salivate over the keyboard. Such are the consequences of eviction.

Due to a surveyors oversight (asbestos-wise) the building housing my wife’s office has been declared a no-go area which led her to commandeer my own little haven of peace where I both worked and listened (at full volume) to my favourite music. It was a well planned invasion, General Patten would have been proud of her. A frontal attack with computers, scanners and laser printers followed by a pincer movement utilising a laser printer/scanner/copier, a battalion of books and her stick-thin Welsh sidekick. I put up a good fight but ultimately my wife’s technology was greater than mine and surrender was the only course – her byte was greater than my Bjork.

As a result, for the foreseeable future I have become an interior nomad, a tethered traveller who, accompanied solely by a laptop, overflowing in tray, empty out tray is constantly on the move from kitchen to dining room, dining room to lounge and back to kitchen, depending on whether we plan on cooking, entertaining or doing the laundry. And it is not just me that has been dispossessed, my storage space has also been appropriated, leaving me with the difficult, if not impossible decision, of where to put my mega collection of scratched LP’s, assorted plugs removed from long deceased gizmos, packets of tile grout of varying colours, folders of utility bills going back to 1989 and the thousand and one irreplaceable bits and bobs awaiting the time when they shall be called upon in an emergency. All these are presently massed behind the sofas, out of sight and collecting dust. And, just in case the quantity of salt (use for the rubbing in of) has not been great enough, my all singing all dancing executive chair, with so many levers and buttons that even Quasimodo could have found the perfect sitting position, has been bagged by Mrs Martin.

No longer can I get out of bed and unshaven and bleary-eyed stagger to my desk to finish the work that I should have finished the day before. No longer can I fry eggs and bacon for lunch, lest it may offend the nostrils of a visiting client and no longer can I can I take long alcoholic lunches with friends, followed by sleep a on the sofa and later pretend that I have had a productive day. The post no longer falls from the letter box but is delivered in sacks and special deliveries arrive hourly. My home is now a hive of activity.

There is, however, just a five minute walk away, a pleasant little coffee shop/wine bar/bistro which is, during the day, unusually busy. So busy that, a while ago, I popped in to see what the fuss was about and what struck me immediately was that the tables were not being used by groups of friends chatting over coffee but solitary people. Each table was being used by just one person and that one person was using a laptop. The penny dropped; the café had a wireless internet link and its customers were working. The place was full of students, script and wannabe script writers, aspiring novelists and lowly freelancers. At a corner table was my neighbour, a psychologist who was with cigarette hanging from lips beavering away at his keyboard (he’s not allowed to smoke at home). The smell of fresh coffee was in the air and occasionally people would take a break and chat to each other; how very convivial.

At ten thirty the following morning my computer and I took a small table, ordered a coffee, sent off some emails and fiddled around looking for cheap flights to the sun. After half an hour of this my neighbour arrived and we chatted for a while. At eleven thirty he was joined by a friend and we all took a coffee break. At twelve fifteen I decided that I really should do some work and at twelve thirty my battery packed up.

Does anyone have a small room to let, my needs are small, a chair, a table, a TV and a sofa will suffice?