I spent three days this week on a beginners’ Scottish Gaelic course for speakers of Irish. It’s a good idea for a course: the languages are very similar, so you don’t really start from the same point as an English speaker would, and it’s more a case of learning what’s different than of learning from the ground up.

It was very good value, but perhaps not as engaging as I’d hoped. Fundamentally, I just don’t really like online learning, and I’d really rather be doing it in person. It was also perhaps a bit too beginners for me: after doing quite a lot of the Duolingo course, there was very little that I hadn’t already seen.

Nonetheless, it was nice to have something to do, and I managed to fit in several odd DIY jobs into the breaks between the sessions. I painted the skirting board where the bookcases were to go, meaning that I was able to move those into position, load them up with books, and clear out some boxes.

No matter how unpleasantly hot it’s been this weekend, at least we don’t have to live with the greenhouse windows of the flat any more. It could be worse!

The house is still chaotic, but gradually less so. Things should be better upstairs in the study once I’ve built the bookcase that arrived flat-packed on Friday and got rid of the stack of boxes in the corner.

The letting agents told me on Friday that they’ve refunded my deposit in full, and I should see it in my account on Monday. We’ll see, but that was easier than I’d expected.