Shh.. Can you hear that noise? It’s the sound of Friday afternoon in offices up and down the country. The silence one associates with absolutely nothing happening. This is the trigger for me to declare open season on the legal profession as yet another house completion deadline passes.

The last email we received had nothing to do with any work actually being done, no it was an airy missive explaining how his charges were likely to be inversely proportional to my future bike spending budget. Apparently he’ll be working on the full financial horror this weekend which does bring the charge “surely you should be working on getting our house bought instead?” squarely into play.

Still if I’m not allowed to go mad with the harpcat(tm), then I’ll just spend the next six months finding reasons not to pay the cheeky bugger. That way he can too share in the joy of apathy – a gift that just keeps on giving. When we receive his bill, I shall ensure it must be counter-signed by random individuals who have no interest in notorising it whatsoever. Further, I will communicate only by writing on the side of a cow using an ancient dialect that nobody other than legal vultures can understand.

Then after dragging the whole process out for as long as possible – even if this means purchasing a fax machine and spare cow – I shall grudgingly settle our account by dispatching a truck full of pennies to be deposited outside his office door. And then, just when he thinks it is over, I shall unleash Harpcat and his nutter posse of ninja voles.

We do really want to start working on the new house, although my motivation may wane once I have reviewed the To-Do list. On the upside, it has only a single entry, on the downside, that entry reads “Everything”. The first order of business is a bonfire of pine, anything we own in this ubiquitous softwood need to feed the flames of my aversion therapy. It really is like living in a sauna here – except for the heat of course because that would imply some kind of summary weather.

It’s nearly the weekend, yet my internal radar is picking up grumpy targets from all quadrants. My attempt to repel scowly borders may be aided by the Much Marcle Steam Rally. I have no idea what happens here unless you really can rally steam. But I don’t care either as a) it’s being held right next door to the pub and b) I can amuse myself by identifying locals using the following formula: Divide Number of fingers by Six and set “local” to true if non fractional number returned.

There may also be some riding of new bicycles but one half of my braking system is in the hands of the Royal Mail. An organisation that prides itself on being late and offering almost no value for money. Kindred spirits with solicitors in my book.