As I type this, an electrician is in my flat, punching holes in my wall. This isn't using his fist, I should add; drills and such are involved, as he's kicking off the rewiring of the entire place. The wiring currently there dates to 1950-ish, and new bits have been added over time, badly (including installing a double socket right underneath the sink - water + electricity = bzzt - and running the cooker off a tiny regular plug, which is just insane).

So far, I have a new fuse box and three holes in my bedroom wall. I'm sitting in living room 2 as there wasn't much I could really do around the place while this went on. Unfortunately, the work is forcing me to eat out for a couple of nights - a real trial, of course.

My new phone line seems to still be working, and my broadband (described the company supplying it as "ludicrously fast") should come tomorrow. I got their crazy router doofer yesterday, it does all sorts of mad stuff, including letting you plug a phone through it for internet phone calls, which is quite cool, but would require me to ever actually phone people. Oh well.

I got my first spam call today (I forget the proper name). Apparently it was a service announcement. It went on to ask me in a computerised voice if I needed help managing my debts. I hung up.

I have lots of "before" photos of my flat, which are now sitting on my laptop and which I should be able to upload some time soon. They're not exactly estate-agent quality (it's amazing what a wide-angle lens will do) but they should be of use to show what's changing as it happens. In fairness, not much will be visible after this stage, it's the stuff still to happen which will actually make much of a difference - wooden floors and a much-needed new bathroom, mainly.

Right, best go for now. The task for this lunchtime is to choose a new hob for the kitchen, and I've singularly failed to do that so far. I've got it down to two, but now I'm stuck. So I'll go and consider that some more and think about how long I can stay in Beanscene not drinking or eating anything before I get kicked out. The girl at the next table has so far made a bottle of Diet Coke last about 50mins, so I should be OK for a while yet.