I finished fitting all the skirting board in the living room. All that remains is some painting. It’s a relief to have done it, but the biggest improvement comes from not having 3m lengths of the stuff sitting on the floor any more.

My desktop computer refused to boot this week. On my way out the door, just as I needed to print something, I realised that I’d turned my computer off when I turned off the power to replace a socket. So I turned it on.

It wouldn’t get beyond the motherboard splash screen, and after ten minutes hitting the restart button without success, I gave out and rushed out.

That afternoon, after a few tests, I established that the problem was the disk (“disk” in a loose sense: it’s actually an M.2 solid state drive the size of a stick of chewing gum) which had gone from working to completely unusable. Unfortunately, although it’s the cheapest part to replace, it’s also the one that’s the most hassle.

I didn’t really lose anything important – everything that matters was backed up or accessible via some other online method – but I don’t have to worry about tidying up my downloads directory for a while.

I bought a new disk for half the price with twice the storage, and after a few hours of installing and tweaking, it’s back up and running. And I’ve set up a daily backup that should make future restoration quicker. It’s not the first time I’ve had an SSD fail without warning, so I’ve learned to treat them as ephemeral storage. This has reinforced that lesson.

My parents came to visit. Not to stay – we’re not rich enough to afford a house with that much space – but they were in London for a function, and came to see our new house the first time. I cooked dinner and we managed to shove things around in the kitchen enough to get four of us around the table. Luckily, they managed to avoid the rain on the way to and from the house.

There has been so much rain this week. Every time it rains it feels as if we’re getting a month’s worth in one day. The good news is that the house has stood up to the onslaught. Nothing seems to leak, and we haven’t been in any danger of flooding. That is, as long as the Thames Barrier continues to protect south London.

I’ve reduced the chaos in the study. I put together the bookcase, and filled it with books. I also took the opportunity to put aside books that I don’t want: novels I’ve read and won’t revisit, or reference books that are no longer relevant. It would have been more sensible to do that before we moved, but moving is hard enough.

I still have enough books sitting on the floor that I need to buy another bookcase. Somehow we’ve increased our shelf space, got rid of books, and still have more metres of books than of shelves. It’s a mystery.

We’ve been watching The Break (La Trêve), a francophone Belgian crime drama. We’re two episodes away from the end of the first season, and it’s very gripping. As someone who lived in Belgium for a while, I enjoy hearing Belgian French spoken, especially little things like nonante (which I still use myself) instead of quatre-vingt-dix.