Am counting the days until I leave work… only two to go, and each one is passing slower than the last. The hardest thing is feigning interest in what I’m doing. Mentally, I’ve already left, so it’s tough to pretend I care about stuff I won’t be working on.

I’m so excited about working from home. At the moment this feels like the best move I’ve ever made (ask me again in a few months), and here are my plans for week one…

Steve will be off work too (yay!) and we’ll be tarting up the mansion, so a trip to B&Q or Homebase is high on the list of priorities. We’re painting the office pale lilac (apparently this colour stimulates creativity. Whatever, I just like it and think it looks good with hot pink), and the bedroom will be very pale pink. The kitchen and dining room will be baby blue. If we actually get around to painting more than one room I will be amazed, but it’s OK to be ambitious.

Riding an open-air bus. Yes, I realise it’s November. But Jean got me two tickets for a hop-on hop-off bus ride, valid for 24 hours (so I’m planning a day ride and an evening ride), for my 30th birthday, and in a year and a half I still haven’t used them. For shame! We will don our warmest coats and hats, fill the hipflask with whiskey, and pretend we are in a giant double-decker convertible (well I will anyway).

Doing lots of work. My first official freelance proofreading job has landed – and it’s 1,000 pages long. I made a dent in it a few weeks ago when I was at home ill, but at an average rate of 17 pages per hour it’s going to take about 58 hours to plough through this bad boy.

Taking advantage of lunch specials. Mclean’s, a nice little café near us, has crazy specials with buy-one-get-one-free meals for £5.95. We’ve been there for breakfast and it was great. Also, a new tapas bar has just opened round the corner. I walked past last night on my way home and it was heaving. They had opening specials (doubles with a mixer for £2.50, cheap tapas) and I am very excited.

Sleeping a lot. And just lying in bed. Maybe having coffee and breakfast in bed. Maybe reading.

Decorating the office. Although it’s a shared room, who are we kidding, the office is mine. We’re visiting Ikea for a spending spree, to get a desk, shelf, desk chair, and lamp. I want to make a shade for the ceiling light, and wrap clean tins in paper or patterned fabric to make pencil holders. I want to get lovely patterned paper and use it to cover files and folders. I want to buy a plain blind for the glass door, which leads onto a small balcony, and decorate it.

Sewing. The next Actionettes club is a Monster Mash on November 11th, and I need to look scary. Found a black brocade minidress in Primark for £10, but it’s a bit plain. Needs a black-and-gold sparkly bib front, or pockets, or a collar.