Lucy Bounces Back

Day 1

Last night my husband, Max, looked at me over his half-eaten Pad Thai and, in calm, measured tones, said, 'I've have enough.

I took him to mean he'd eaten enough dinner. He's been on a health kick recently, prompted by watching The Biggest Loser.

I was preoccupied thinking our two children, who'd left on a school camp that afternoon, and so didn't pay much attention as he pushed his plate away, stood up and disappeared out the kitchen door. A few minutes later there was a clatter as he pulled his surfboard from its wall bracket. It's been a long time since Max hit the waves. And besides it was dark. I went to the window just in time to see him reversing his car down the driveway at considerable speed, his bright red board strapped to the roof-racks. Stopping briefly to check for oncoming cars, he screeched onto the road and accelerated off into the night.

It is now three o'clock the following afternoon. He's not back and I have a sneaking suspicion (well, not that sneaking really) that he's not surfing because:

1. It's a cold August afternoon.
2. Nineteen hours is a long time to stay out waiting for sets.
3. Max has been pissed off for some time now

The cause? We're are three months behind schedule in our renovation process, and said renovations are taking considerable time - and money.

Max, I hasten to add, it the one who insisted on renovations in the first place. He's also the one who decreed that we stay in the house during the demolition - now complete - and construction - very much incomplete. Instead of the brand-spanking-new kitchen, family room and bathroom we envisaged, the downstairs of the house is a shell, and we spend most of our time in a laundry/ storeroom that's currently doubling as a kitchen and family room. Four people confined to a tiny room in the middle of winter, with a piss-weak bar heater, no hot water and no kitchen is no picnic, thank you very much. The builders haven't even poured the concrete slab for the new floor yet, there's an inconsistent flush in one of our two working toilets, and the latest hiccup - a leaking roof.

Bella and Sam, serial school-camp refuseniks in the past, fairly jumped at the opportunity to go to Bathurst and spend their nights in sleeping bags in sub-zero temperatures because the payoff was hot showers, flushing toilets and, conceivably, the absence of bickering parents.

My advice? Be very careful when choosing tradesmen. Do not, I repeat, do not under any circumstance hire someone who drops a flyer in your letterbox and answers to a name like Spud. I did and . . . well, let's just say we need to replace the sewer line and no longer have a watertight roof.

No wonder Max has bolted. It's okay. I'm not hysterical. He just needs time to unwind, to get his head around the mind-boggling cost of Carrara marble benchtops, under-floor heating and the whole ongoing fiasco. He'll be back.