On Tuesday, all I had to do was get up and go to the dentist. No drama, no chaos, just a routine appointment, followed immediately by ruining my scale and polish with an iced Americano from Starbucks with my son.

However, this is me.

If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you’ll know there is always some kind of chaos. I am, unfortunately, a chaos goblin. The universe usually joins in too. This week it even recruited one of my neighbours, who briefly cosplayed as a gaze of feral raccoons in our communal bin room.

Why is it always a Tuesday?

Douglas Adams was wrong. Thursdays make perfect sense to me. Tuesdays, however, are cursed. I have never got the hang of Tuesdays.

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The Morning After the Night Before

Going to the dentist sounded simple. It really wasn’t.

Partly because, like most people, I wasn’t exactly thrilled about someone poking around in my mouth. Mostly because at 10 p.m. the night before I’d decided the most sensible use of my evening was attempting to dismantle my sofa.

Not move it. Not replace it. DESTROY it.

By the time I finally admitted defeat, I’d managed to remove exactly one armrest before deciding perhaps using tools at 10 p.m. wasn’t my greatest life choice.

So there I was the next morning, drinking coffee in that peculiar “waiting to leave the house” state, staring at a sofa with its innards hanging out and one arm missing. I couldn’t stop looking at it.

The dentist suddenly felt like an inconvenience. All I wanted to do was stay home and finish what I’d started.

The sofa had somehow become my Harbinger from Mass Effect. I could almost hear it whispering, “You fight against inevitability. Dust struggling against cosmic winds. This seems a victory to you.”

The only inevitability I was fighting was finishing dismantling a DFS sofa by taking their “25% Off” sale a little too literally.

Why on Earth had I decided to destroy my sofa at ten o’clock the night before? We’ll get to that.

As tempting as it was to abandon dentistry in favour of furniture destruction, I knew I probably shouldn’t. I’d been dealing with weeks of mouth pain. My tongue and the roof of my mouth constantly felt as though I’d accidentally drunk a bucket of Minecraft lava instead of milk. Eating hurt. Brushing my teeth hurt. Even taste had gone a bit strange, which is particularly concerning when you’re in eating disorder recovery.

It’s also another reason I’ve suddenly developed an iced coffee obsession. The ice is one of the few things that temporarily settles it down. I figured I should probably make sure nothing was structurally wrong before declaring defeat and living exclusively on ice cubes.

So I made myself a deal. Go to the dentist. Come home. Buy a saw and some work gloves on the way. Then send the sofa back to dark space, Commander Shepard style. Simple. Surely nothing could possibly get in my way.

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The Ridulousness of Big Numbers

My son and I wore T-shirts and shorts for the walk to the dentist. The sky was a brilliant blue without a cloud in sight and, thankfully, it was far cooler than the heatwave the week before. It was actually a lovely day.

We sat in the windowless waiting room, messing around on our phones until I was called in.

The dentist had a thorough look around after I explained the pain I’d been having. Teeth, gums, tongue, roof of my mouth… everything looked completely normal. No sores. No infection. Nothing concerning.

Which is obviously good news. It’s also slightly annoying because it means my current self diagnosis is probably right: burning mouth syndrome. Another perimenopause symptom.

Over the last couple of months I’ve repeatedly ended up on Google with the weirdest symptoms imaginable, only to find pages upon pages of women saying, “Oh yes, I had that too.” The wild part isn’t even that they’re symptoms of perimenopause. It’s discovering they were things human bodies could apparently do in the first place. I HAD NO IDEA.

Armed with the reassuring news that nothing appeared to be structurally wrong, and a mouth that now hurt even more thanks to the hygienist, I headed to reception.

The man in front of me apparently needed a lot of work doing. It always makes me laugh how people read out really expensive numbers differently, as though somehow it softens the blow. The receptionist calmly informed him that the total would be:

“Eight… one… oh… five.”

My brain immediately translated it.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN EIGHT THOUSAND, ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE POUNDS?

The poor man’s face completely drained of colour.

With nowhere else to look or stand, and feeling like he probably deserved a bit of privacy while calculating whether Tuco’s grill from Breaking Bad would actually have been the cheaper option, I turned to stare out of the only window.

There were a couple of pigeons happily flapping around outside with their wings stretched out. They were basking in the rain.

Hang on… WAIT.

RAIN? HOW IS IT RAINING?

I was so shocked by this complete plot twist in the weather that I loudly announced it to my son.

“It’s RAINING!”

He looked over.

“It’s not just raining either, it’s absolutely TIPPING IT DOWN!”

“WHAT? REALLY?”

By this point I’d accidentally involved the entire waiting room in the conversation. A few people looked over, trying not to laugh at my genuine shock and excitement.

Then I looked down at my T-shirt. No jacket. No umbrella. Nothing.

“Oh no…”

We were about to get absolutely soaked.

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The Emergency Sports Direct Arc

We speed walked through the rain from the dentist back into the city centre. The plan was simple: get to Sports Direct, the nearest clothes shop, and buy literally anything with sleeves.

We were laughing about how quickly the weather had changed, but I was getting colder by the second. It was absolutely chucking it down. As it is said in Welsh, it was raining old ladies and sticks.

I said to my son, “Remember last week during the heatwave when we said we’d happily go out in T-shirts and shorts if it just started raining?”

He laughed. “Yeah… I was silly to wish for that.”

Secretly though… I was loving it.

I love rain. I love weather that changes its mind halfway through the day. I miss those proper Welsh summers where you’d leave the house in sunshine and get caught in a thunderstorm an hour later. It feels like something we’ve slowly lost as our summers have become increasingly dominated by heatwaves and temperatures that somehow reach 37°C in Wales.

We eventually made it to Sports Direct and immediately began the emergency jacket hunt. My son found a really nice hoodie. I found a navy Karrimor jacket with a fleece lining that instantly became one of the greatest purchases I’ve ever made because by this point I was absolutely freezing.

We took them to the till, dripping water everywhere.

The cashier smiled and asked, “Would you like a bag?”

“No thanks. Is it alright if we just put them on now? It’s absolutely chucking it down outside.”

She looked genuinely surprised. “What? Really?”

“Yeah… It’s really coming down”

“I wondered why someone bought an umbrella earlier. I thought that was a bit strange because it was so sunny.”

I just laughed and pointed at the absolute state of us. Only afterwards did I wonder what she’d actually assumed had happened. Because if she genuinely didn’t know it was raining… What explanation was she working with when two extremely wet people approached the till with a hoodie and a jacket?

Did she think we’d decided to shower fully clothed before coming shopping? Had we gone for an impromptu swim in the River Usk? Had we somehow become the physical embodiment of an IGN review?

“Needs more water.”

Whatever she’d imagined, we laughed about it for ages afterwards.

It’s amazing how much more charming torrential rain becomes when you’re wearing the comfiest jackets you’ve ever owned.

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The Suspicious Store and Starbucks

After Sports Direct we headed to this weird store I’d found on Google that apparently sells every item you can think of. The reviews were right. They really did have everything. Well… almost everything. They didn’t have thermal clips, so instead I left with a hand saw, black bags and a pair of work gloves to blast my sofa to pieces.

I fully expected at least one raised eyebrow from the cashier, but he didn’t even blink. To be fair, that’s probably because he works in this city. I imagine he’s seen far stranger shopping combinations than someone quietly preparing to dismantle a sofa.

We then headed to Waterstones because my son wanted a copy of Project Hail Mary that he could completely destroy with annotations, highlighters and page markers for a very serious piece of writing he’s planning.

While we were there I ended up chatting to the cashier about the rain. I told him it reminded me of Wales in the old days, before every summer seemed determined to impersonate southern Spain. I was feeling oddly nostalgic for the Welsh summers of yore.

He completely agreed, “It’s much better than all this heat.”

It’s always nice finding people who openly admit they don’t enjoy our increasingly ridiculous summers. Apparently hating heatwaves makes you miserable.

I’m sorry, but I enjoy the weather for about 90% of the year. If your happiness depends entirely on the 10% where the Welsh Dragon on our flag breathes fire everywhere, then statistically I’m probably less miserable than you because of the weather, Sharon.

After that we wandered into Starbucks.

Despite still being freezing from getting soaked, I couldn’t bring myself to order a hot drink. My mouth still felt like I’d been drinking Minecraft lava, and Starbucks somehow manage to serve Americanos at approximately the surface temperature of the sun. It would have taken me an hour before I could even attempt the first sip.

So naturally… I ordered an Iced Americano. Which, unsurprisingly, made me even colder. It was nice to be back in Starbucks though. We hadn’t been for ages because the heatwave had basically trapped us indoors all week.

Once we’d finished our drinks we headed back home. The rain had stopped. The sun was shining again. And my half-dismantled sofa was waiting for me.

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The Impulsive Need to Destroy a Sofa

I got home and laid all my newly purchased tools out in front of my broken sofa, preparing for what can only be described as furniture based warfare.

Why on Earth did I start this? I’ve genuinely been asking myself that ever since. When you strip away all the nonsense, it boils down to one thing. I should probably be banned from playing House Flipper. Nearly every questionable DIY decision I’ve made after 10 p.m. can somehow be traced back to that game.

During last week’s heatwave there wasn’t much I could actually do. I couldn’t use the TV because I’d already lost two televisions to previous heatwaves, but my MacBook copes remarkably well, even with games.

House Flipper 2 isn’t available on Mac, but House Flipper Remastered Collection had just been released with a huge discount if you already owned the original and some of the DLC.

So I spent most of the heatwave flipping houses. I didn’t own the house-building DLC before, so suddenly I was designing entire homes, selling them for £200,000 profit and becoming everything currently wrong with the housing market.

At one point I built my son a bedroom and found a bed I knew he’d absolutely love. I showed him. He fell in love with it. The following day I somehow found the exact same bed on Amazon.

As soon as the heatwave finally broke he started looking for beds properly and immediately entered what I can only describe as I HAVE TO FIX THIS RIGHT NOW mode.

To be fair, we’d both spent the best part of a week hiding in my bedroom because the rest of the flat was approaching 40°C during the day and still around 32°C at three in the morning. Eco flat problems. Cabin fever, heat exhaustion and severe lack of sleep for a whole week probably played a role.

We dismantled his old bed immediately so he could order the new one. He kept thanking me and saying “I LOVE YOU” for helping him do it straight away. Then he ordered his new bed.

Job done. Except…

Something about his urgency rubbed off on me. I sat down in the living room and looked through into the balcony room. For years there’d been an old sofa sitting in there annoying me. Nobody would collect it because it didn’t have a fire safety label.

The council would take it… provided I carried the entire thing down several flights of stairs first. I can’t do that. It’s ridiculously heavy, and between my joints and hypermobility I can barely drag it across a polished floor just to clean behind it.

So, at ten o’clock that night, fresh from discovering how surprisingly easy furniture is to dismantle… I picked up a hammer and the biggest flat head screwdriver I own.

The council wouldn’t collect a sofa. They would, however, happily collect several bags of completely ordinary household rubbish. A sofa that ceases to be. A collection of black bags that formerly identified as a sofa. An ex-sofa.

The plan was to finally turn that room into the cosy space I’d accidentally designed for myself while playing House Flipper. Reality eventually intervened. By the time I remembered I had neighbours trying to sleep, I’d only managed to remove exactly one armrest.

I stood there staring at it wondering what on Earth had possessed me. I kept saying to my son,

“Why did I do that?”

Neither of us had an answer. Although we’ve both agreed House Flipper should probably accept at least some of the blame.

So here I was. Finally home. Finally armed with a saw. Finally ready to finish what Tuesday had interrupted.

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The Balcony Rage Room

As I picked up my tools and stared at the sofa, my balcony effectively became a rage room. It became therapy.

June had quietly become a month I was trying to outrun. At the beginning of the month it was my dad’s birthday. The day before I attacked the sofa it was my mother’s.

I’d convinced myself I could simply… not think about them. Not look at the dates. Pretend it was already July. I didn’t want to deal with trauma. I didn’t want to sit with the sadness of not knowing where my dad is. I didn’t want to feel the anger and grief that always comes with thinking about my mother, or the longing for the mother I should have had instead.

That all felt too heavy. Too exhausting. Too boring. So instead I threw myself into practical things. Dismantle the bed. Buy the tools. Destroy the sofa. Except feelings don’t disappear just because you refuse to acknowledge the calendar.

I could feel myself swallowing all of it. The sadness about my dad. The anger about my mother. It had to go somewhere. So I summoned THE RAGE.

I went at it like this sofa was the Harbinger of my trauma, and I was determined to destroy it before it destroyed me first. Like trauma, it had been sitting there in that room for years, quietly haunting me. Every previous attempt to get rid of it had failed.

This time I had a saw. A hammer. A giant screwdriver. And absolutely no patience left.

My son later said my eyes looked crazed as I hammered the screwdriver between the wooden frame, pulling with everything I had to prise it apart.

He did have to rescue me with the sawing.

In fairness to him, he pointed out it had been considerably less time since he’d used a saw in wood technology at school than it had since I’d used one. He did a remarkable job, tackling the few long wooden slats that simply refused to come apart.

The rest I’d already decided would become tomorrow’s problem. Specifically, tomorrow’s reciprocating saw problem.

Yes… I also impulsively bought a reciprocating saw on Amazon. Me. With power tools. What could possibly go wrong?

Eventually the sofa stopped looking like a sofa altogether. It became a pile of wooden slats, an astonishing amount of foam, miles of elastic webbing instead of springs, cardboard, staples and wood glue. Whoever designed that thing had apparently declared war on anyone who might one day need to dismantle it.

It was exhausting. It was frustrating. But at the same time was strangely therapeutic.

I found myself wishing trauma could be dismantled the same way. Pull it apart. Separate it into manageable pieces. Bag it up. Take it to the bin room. Throw it away. Never think about it again. Obviously it doesn’t work like that. But for a little while, all the anger I’d been carrying had somewhere useful to go.

It surprised me how much it helped.

I can’t exactly recommend DESTROYING furniture every time trauma catches up with you, and I certainly don’t intend to declare war on the rest of my flat (yet), but putting all of that bottled up anger somewhere physical felt… freeing.

I don’t think I’d have managed to destroy the sofa without it. I never really understood when therapists said “Anger is useful” but now I do.

By the end I’d scratched my leg badly enough to draw blood and hadn’t even noticed until my son pointed it out. I had been completely in the zone.

All that remained was to carry several bags containing what was formerly a sofa – and perhaps a little less of the anger I’d been carrying around – to the communal bin room.

Unfortunately… Tuesday wasn’t quite finished with me yet.

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One of My Neighbours Is a Gaze of Feral Raccoons

It took several trips to carry the former sofa to the bin room. Somewhere between trip two and trip three, something very strange happened. I walked into the bin room and genuinely stopped in my tracks.

It looked as though it had been set upon by a gaze of feral raccoons. The giant Biffa bins had been dragged all over the place. Someone had clearly been through them because rubbish was scattered across the entire floor.

I’d been in there not twenty minutes earlier. It had been perfectly normal. This fact gave me a ridiculous amount of anxiety. HOW?

Now it looked like the aftermath of a tiny landfill apocalypse. I threw another bag of sofa remains into the bin I could reach and hurried back upstairs to tell my son what I’d just seen. Then something deeply unfortunate happened.

My sense of civic responsibility kicked in.

I hadn’t been the feral raccoon. But some of the rubbish now lying across the floor was mine because it had clearly been dragged back out of the bins. There are elderly and disabled people living in my building. If I’d walked in there and nearly slipped over it, someone else could too. I couldn’t just leave it.

It was ten o’clock at night. There wasn’t anyone I could realistically call to deal with it until the following day. So I grabbed my work gloves, a face mask, a squeegee, a dustpan and smaller squeegee..

My son immediately joined me, complete with his own gloves and mask.

“I hope whoever did it doesn’t come back,” he said. I’d somehow not even considered that possibility.

Back downstairs we carefully looked through the mess. Thankfully there weren’t any sharps or broken glass – just ordinary household rubbish.

Ordinary household rubbish is still ABSOLUTELY disgusting, mind you. So we cleaned it all up and put everything back where it belonged.

Now… I have OCD. Which, for once, turned out to be oddly useful because I already owned enough PPE to prepare for what felt like a minor biohazard incident.

Once we’d finished, we stripped off in the hallway, bagged all our clothes ready for a 60°C wash, took turns having what can only be described as decontamination showers, then I scrubbed everything we’d used with neat bleach before leaving it to soak overnight.

Honestly, I still felt like I needed another seventeen showers.

By that point I was in agony, somewhere around minus seven hundred spoons, and completely exhausted. All I’d had to do that morning was go to the dentist. I still can’t quite believe all of this happened on a Tuesday.

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Honestly, This Could Have Been Five Blog Posts

I use this blog as a record of the things I want to remember, and the things I hope my son might one day remember about me or about us when I’m no longer here.

I really wanted to remember Tuesday in its entirety. It was one of those days that somehow felt like it lasted a week.

I know I could have split this into five different blog posts. There was the dentist, the weather deciding to have an identity crisis, the emergency Sports Direct expedition, my impulsive declaration of war on a sofa, and the mystery of the communal bin room.

But to understand Tuesday, you had to understand all of it.

The chaos wasn’t separate. It was just… Tuesday.

The effects of Tuesday carried on through the rest of the week.

Wednesday consisted mostly of fatigue and discovering muscles I didn’t even know I’d grown during eating disorder recovery. Apparently all that protein came in handy after all, because I genuinely don’t think I’d have managed any of this a year ago.

I have been absolutely exhausted ever since. But the week wasn’t finished with me yet. Thursday brought the arrival of my son’s new bed. Then came Friday…

Both of which deserve their own blog posts and hopefully I’ll get around to it..

Finally, if I ever mention becoming hyperfixated on House Flipper again, please remind me of this week. I only wanted something to do during a heatwave.

Instead, I somehow ended up building a bed, dismantling a sofa, cleaning a communal bin room, buying a hand saw and a reciprocating saw, accidentally creating my own rage room, and discovering that all I really needed to do on Tuesday…

…was go to the dentist.

Please enjoy my angry at parents song that got me through sofa destruction :-