If I wasn't so busy doing nothing, I could be having fun

One minute the house is full - when I walk in the oldest one, and his friend, and the middle one and my wife are all fussing over a manual juicer the oldest one has brought back from a car boot sale.

- Tim Dowling

“What’s going on?” I say.

“We're juicing,” says the oldest. There are 20 spent orange halves on the worktop, and an inch of juice in a glass below the squeezer.

“Is it working?” I say.

“Sort of,” says the middle one.

“I might have bought the wrong kind of oranges,” my wife says.

“Did you buy wax ones?” I say.

Twelve hours later, I find myself alone. My wife has decided to take a train to Dorset to stay with a friend. The house is empty, apart from the animals lying on the kitchen floor.

I don’t mind spending time alone, but I can’t pretend I’m good at it. Within 45 minutes I am talking to myself. Anything over 48 hours and I start to eat with my hands.

But a bigger problem presents itself: I don’t know how to use the time. Sitting in my office shed, I find myself paralysed by indecision.

It’s not as if I have no options - tax paperwork, minor home repairs, unanswered emails. I could clean my office - an annual event now three years overdue. I could cut the grass, but I won’t get any credit for that.