Take a break

I am bad at taking my annual holidays. My partners think I should take them. It gets me out of the office and sometimes I am more benign when I return. But apart from the obligatory fortnight's fry and the odd long weekend, I just do not use up my entitlement. There doesn't seem to be time for it. Besides, it enables me to be virtuous when I confront Deborah (my gin and tonic partner) who always appears to take about nine weeks each year and - damn it - still beats me on the fee earning stakes.
Everyone was therefore relieved when I decided to take an autumn break. I was looking forward to it too: a whole week on my own without the stress of incessant telephone calls and interminable clients. I would complete my tax return, catch up on many letters, mow the lawn and put up the shelves that Alison has been waiting for patiently since the year before last. I would also finish off a few more articles for the Solicitors Journal and torment its long suffering readers.
It was obvious, wasn't it, that I would need to go in at the weekend to finish off before settling down for my break? If I arrived at the office early on Saturday I would be home soon - in time for some grass cutting.
I did and I wasn't, because it was bed time when I got back. Still that left me with Sunday to start - Oh no I had agreed to go down to London on Sunday night for an early morning encounter with Kilroy. Well that wasn't work anyway, and I'd be back by lunchtime.
I was. At the office. Could I just clear a couple of points with you begged Kal - and Ian - and Aileen (fortunately Barbara was away). But Andrea wasn't.
Day 1 of my holiday therefore began at 4.25 when I left the office. I had to leave then to meet the school bus.
Day 2 was a slight improvement. I'd agreed to continue to get up at 6.30 to take the children to the bus. On the way home I would drop in at the office to do a little photocopying. No harm in that surely? I did slightly better on day 2. I left the office at 4 pm.
Day 3 was a real victory. I worked on my A level biology assignment. I had no idea that carbohydrates were so complicated. Things were really beginning to look up. I could feel the relaxation of my holiday coursing through my veins. I had to get my evening class out of the way. Now it was a clear run.
So Day 4 (Thursday) dawned. I was really going to ENJOY today. I raced back after dropping the children without going near the office. Five minutes later the man came to mend the dishwasher. I had called him out because the dishwasher was only making a half hearted attempt at the dishes.
"We'll soon have you fixed" he said cheerfully, and promptly snapped the drainage hose.
"Oh dear" he looked worried "it's an old model. These are a little hard to come by. Still I'll sort out the rest of the machine"
There were bits of dishwasher all over the floor by the time he produced a box with dials on it.
"OK let's do a test". But before he started there was a clunk. All the electricity in the house went out. Using the privatised telephone I called up the privatised electricity company. They were very cheerful. Their electricity was on. But our electricity could be off for a further three hours.
The prospect of three hours with the Cheerful Dishwasher Man (CDM) drove me to ingenuity. Back in the wealthy era of the three day week we had made provision for the Revolution and acquired a little generator. The Revolution never came, but the occasional gale did, so the generator has been used in the years between - about twice.
Nearly re-slipping my disks I heaved the generator to the kitchen door, connected the wires and handed some electricity to the CDM. He pronounced that it was just what he wanted and also pronounced, a few minutes later that there was nothing wrong with the dishwasher that wouldn't be cured by changing our detergent. Except for the hose that he broke.
"Sorry mate - must go now. Next call. They should be able to get the new hose to you by the week after next". He slammed the back door - and the lights came back on.
I spent till lunchtime improvising with a pipe, jubilee clips and chewing gum until I achieved a reasonably watertight substitute for the hose. The drawback was that the dishwasher was now in the middle of the kitchen floor - and could only be certain not to flood if you held the hose in the sink for its 55 minute cycle
I had lost my impetus to write: my brain had become soggy. Perhaps I could find inspiration in lawnmowing. But the mower had a distinct list to starboard - caused by a very flat tyre. The technical minded may know that when a tyre has been flat for several weeks (we try not to over exert our mower) it loses its natural shape. If the tyre is also tubeless it evinces a marked tendency not to hold in air. No amount of pumping had any effect at all.
There was nothing to it, but to remove the whole wheel (I still have the scar where the screwdriver went into my hand) and take it to the local garage. The man at the garage had not heard of the expression "free as air". To placate him into letting me use his air line I had to buy 2 Mars Bars, a packet of washers and a Skoda.
Returned wheel to mower, to discover that the list was now to port. More pumping eventually ensured that the thing was roughly horizontal. There was now just enough time to fetch the children from the school bus - as darkness began to fall.
On day 5 I knew I had to be in the office. It had been planned. A researcher from a TV programme wanted to bend my ear for half an hour. Expecting to be dressed like him (and signalling to the rest of the world that I was not really in the office) I turned up in jeans. The researcher wore a suit, arrived late and stayed for five and a half hours.
A little queue of "it'll only take five minutes"'s ensured that once more I did not leave till 4.35.
Days 6 and 7 were the weekend again. Whatever else I did I vowed not to go near the office. But there was the little matter of my tax return. And the five missing bank statements ..... and where was the certificate of interest paid on my disastrous Docklands investment?
"Right" I said to our golden retriever. "I am going to sort out this house." It took two days to clear the piles of paper (mainly, my wife pointed out, in my study or of my creation), to find the missing documents - along with many others - and to finalise my tax return. Outside the grass grew provocatively as Sunday's light failed.
"Right." The cats did not even look up as I bellowed. At last I could use those silly headlights that they put on the mower. For two hours I swept around in the gloom, slicing swathes through shrubs (and some grass).
Monday morning woke to find a partially shaved lawn, one decimated football and several lengths of garden hose, neatly cut to fit almost any dishwasher.
A black cloud floated just above me all the way to the office. My gin and tonic partner stuck her head round the door.
"Did you have a g...." she began to ask before she thought better of it and beat a hasty retreat.

This article first appeared in Solicitors Journal in February 1995