The cat is on Valium, the man wants to take up permanent residency in the pub and I'm probably having a nervous breakdown. This week was the week where I asked the question "why did we start?" The home office is a disaster area. Men with Kango hammers and pneumatic drills are wandering around the place while I slowly sink into a morass of self-pity as I stare at a blank screen and fail miserably to get the words from my head to the page. There might not have been much home space left before the building work started, and the office might have felt like an outpost of Northern Siberia, but at least it was quiet. Now it's like sitting beneath a 747 as it hurtles along the runway.

The net result of this is that it's almost impossible to stay at home, which meant it was good timing to have spent a few days visiting bookshops in Ireland and the UK to promote my new book.

But it also meant that most of the week's news stories just passed me by because I didn't have space in my brain to cope with the rejected bid for the London Stock Exchange, a 2.8 per cent increase in the UK Producer Prices Index, the wobbles on the Dow and the Nasdaq, and the fact that the suppliers of our windows have gone on strike, all at the same time. And my priorities on all these events have changed.

The man, of course, thinks I have it easy. After all, I was in London for some of last week and so missed one or two of the more dramatic moments of walls being knocked down and holes appearing in the ceiling. (There weren't meant to be any holes in the ceiling. Not originally).

The trip was excellent as far as bookish things went, although, once again, the flights were a bit of a nightmare. Obviously I wouldn't dream of blaming weather-related delays on the airline - I'm not entirely without understanding - although I can't see why Ryanair's 58p a minute phoneline couldn't have told me that the flight would be delayed when I rang it to find out. Surely that's the point of the thing. Since I was due to fly out on the Monday morning of the storms I thought I'd better check to see whether any flights were leaving Dublin Airport at all. I would have understood perfectly well if they'd been cancelled. According to the phoneline the flights were on time, but of course they weren't. And they must have known that already, as they were late because the weather in London was awful too, and the incoming aircraft were already delayed. So why couldn't they have told us? Would it have cost more money to change the tape? On the return trip, my flight was actually cancelled and we were bumped onto the next one, which was also late. So I still haven't ever left Stansted on time.

I actually wanted to say something nice about Ryanair because I do think it's a brilliant company and it has revolutionised air travel in Europe, let alone Ireland. Michael O'Leary thinks I'm being unfair to them when I complain about their delays. He even sent me a copy of their departure and arrival statistics to prove how on time they normally are. Clearly I'm a blip on their statistical spreadsheet and I apologise if I'm giving an inaccurate view of the flight times. Actually, I'm quite familiar with a lot of the Ryanair fleet, since the approach to Dublin Airport takes quite a lot of them close to what's left of my back garden. So I'm used to seeing the Jaguar one and the Hertz one flying by every evening. Even if not always at the time they're supposed to.

But maybe I'm being particularly cranky and unforgiving at the moment because of the building scenario. And because the skip outside the front door, which I thought would be gone by now, is still mocking me. Actually, having a skip is interesting. Naturally all of our household junk went into it straight away, but since then it's been the proud recipient of a fireplace, pram, freezer, carpet and assorted offerings from goodness knows where. Not all of those items remained in it, however, as we've seen people removing things too. Though if they took the portable TV they're in for a disappointment. It was in the skip because it breathed its last more than a year ago. And it was a very old TV. Nevertheless, if someone has managed to recycle it, I'm with them all the way.

The ECB continues to recycle the euro. The uncertainty in the US meant that the euro should have been able to benefit but, realistically, neither a Gore nor a Bush administration means that much to the markets anymore. The chairman of the Fed is much more important than the president as far as currency traders are concerned, although I suppose neither the Republicans nor the Democrats would agree. As I said before, a slowdown in the US economy will do more for the euro than anything else. And, given the number of dot.coms that are crumbling, as well as weaker statistics from the US generally, that does seem to be happening. Meanwhile the ECB continues to target the exchange rate, and given the recent comments from Welteke that a weak euro was a threat to the global economy, it would appear intervention continues to be on the cards.

At home, Paul McGrath is doing his best to make us think in euros. The infomercial being broadcast on TV tells you what you need to know - £1 = €1.27. The only thing is, all of my knowledge about the euro reflects the relationship the other way around. So, as far as I'm concerned, it's €1 = 0.79p (more or less). I suppose it's a matter of perception but if we're going to be seeing prices in euros then intuitively I'd have thought we'd be calculating backwards. But maybe that's even more confusing.

I'm so confused myself this week that I'm thinking of robbing the cat's drug supply. (You think I'm joking about the cat? Not at all.) The architect and builder have both told me that things will be better next week. Maybe.