A whole cascade of misfortunes with silver linings mean that I now have a really good space in the corner of my bedroom where my laptop and I can decamp when I turn my study into a guest room - as I did when the Grenoble guests were here and as I will again at Christmas.

It's a long list but included:
1. my lovely old monitor turning into a streaky kaleidoscope about three months ago then going black. Before the replacement that I ordered turned up, the old monitor mysteriously started working normally again.
2. my hub randomly cutting things off (which, in retrospect, might have been the source of the monitor problem). When I ordered a replacement hub I discovered it was Black-Friday half-price. Great, but as I unpacked the new monitor I realised the replacement hub I'd ordered didn't have the right socket to fit it. So I ordered another that did, also half price. Which meant I now had two monitors and two hubs...

... opportunity.

As I chucked out most of my life's work three months ago, I could dismantle the wobbly, almost-empty plank-and-brick bookcase; remove the tiny, flimsy desk I got from Freegle a while ago which I was worried was neither strong nor large enough to support a monitor; juggle space and fit in a bigger work surface.

Offering some chairs that I don't want on Freegle, I spotted the perfect solid-wood desk for the newly enlarged space. Which my lovely neighbour helped me collect on Saturday before I left for Bristol

Today I fixed some brackets to the wall to hold one side of it up (the solid side it came with wastes space and fouls the electricity sockets) and I've started tidying my over-supply of stationery into its perfectly sized drawers.

Now I must deal with the mass of papers already cluttering the new surface.

When the house was wired I planned the number and position of the wall sockets so that I would never need extension leads again. I failed. Every socket in the house is now either unused or has an extension lead plugged in.