There is going to be no blood, sweat or tears because I am going to pace myself this time...

WEDNESDAY. My eldest son and his fiancé Janis have arrived home from London. They have not yet seen the new house that we have just bought but I’ve just shown them photographs of it online.

And silence has since fallen.

“The outside only needs a touch of gentrification,” I say, “new windows, a nice front door. Repainting. Bit of landscaping.”

“What about the inside?” my son says.

“You’ll see it tomorrow,” I say, “when you rip out the kitchen.”

“I don’t get it Mum,” my son says, “you swore you’d never renovate anything again as long as you lived. You’ve been swearing that for my entire childhood.”

“And mine,” my daughter says.

“That’s 29 years,” my son says.

“It’s not a renovation job,” I say.

“How did you work that one out?” my son says.

“For one thing,” I say, “it has a roof.”

“So,” my son says, “just to be clear, when you bought this house, you were using, ‘having a roof’ as your yardstick for…”

“Yes,” my husband and daughter say, “she was.”

“In my world,” I say, “this is not a renovation job.”

“What world is that,” my son says, “denial?”

“This,” I announce, “is actually just a little doer-upper.”

“It’s a world of denial,” my husband says, “but it’s also a world of splitting hairs.”

“This time round,” I say, “it’s going to be all about planning and pacing. This time round, there is going to be no blood, sweat or tears because I am going to pace myself.”

Another silence falls.

“No blood, sweat or tears?” my husband says.

“You?” my daughter says, “Pacing?”

“So,” my son says, “definitely a world of denial then.”

Thursday. 11am.

I am stripping wallpaper upstairs in the little doer-upper. Below me in the kitchen, my son is sledge-hammering out old kitchen units. A soundtrack is evolving; after an hour, I’m able to anticipate every beat and bar:

Verse:

Juddering SMACK

Deafening SMACK

SMACK. SMACK. SMACK.

Sudden deathly silence

Chorus (led by Janis):

Please don’t kill yourself

Use the screwdriver

It’s what it’s there for.

After an hour, my son comes upstairs.

“Two more units to go,” he pants.

I am facing the wall, hacking viciously at its stubbornly wallpapered surface with a kitchen knife. My daughter is wilting over her scraper, facing another.

“So you’re going to strip all the wallpaper off yourself?” he pants.

“It’s on every single wall,” my daughter pants, “in every single room.”

I turn around and facing my son, slump down the wall. While I wither by the skirting boards, my son looks at the section of wall I have scraped free of wallpaper.

It has roughly the same surface area and outline as a gentleman’s shoe, size nine. Next he stares at my daughter’s; the section my daughter has scraped is a ladies, size five.

“That took you an hour,” he says, “going at it hard.”

I wipe my brow with an old paint rag, then cover my face with it, the better to hide my despair.

“Well,” he says, “there’s your sweat right there.”

2pm. My son resumes his work in the kitchen:

Juddering SMACK

Deafening SMACK

SMACK. SMACK. SMACK.

But then the soundtrack changes; the sudden deathly silence is followed by a scream.

2.10pm. We are in the local doctor’s surgery.

4.30pm. My son is in accident and emergency; tetanus shot for a puncture wound and three stitches to his head.

6pm. We are all back in the kitchen of the little doer-upper, collecting wallets and phones that we left behind in our hurry.

“It was that unit there,” my son says, pointing, “the one I yanked off the wall onto my head.”

There are dark red spatters everywhere but mostly on the fridge. On top of the fridge is a single screw.

“That’s the screw that stuck in my temple,” my son says, “I’m going to keep that.”

He holds it up for all to see.

“Look,” he says, “there’s my blood right there.”

7pm. We are all back home.

“I think we should have a nice family meal,” my husband says.

“I can make leek and Parma ham spaghetti,” says Janis, “Jamie Oliver’s. Done it before. It’s really nice.”

7.30pm. I am lying on my bed upstairs when my son, daughter and Janis return from the supermarket.

7.35pm. My husband brings me up a glass of wine.

“Moltepulciano,” he says, “your favourite. They bought it for you.”

“I thought the screw might have gone into his temporal artery,” I say.

And there are the tears, right there.