Sanctuary!

The school summer holidays have begun and I have immediately identified a major problem: there is nowhere for me to do sit and do my work! The downstairs room at the front of the house has my desk in it and what we consider to be the 'family' computer, the one where we retrieve our emails, download music, store photos etc. I do normally work at this desk, although I use my laptop which is dedicated to university/thesis stuff. This room can get very hot (being south-facing) so in the summer months I sometimes move through and work on the dining-room table at the north-facing back of the house; this is very pleasant as the french windows open out onto the garden. Trouble is, all the music equipment is in the front room so if daughter no.3 wants to play her bass guitar it gets disturbingly noisy. She quite often wants to go on the house computer too - which is fine, except I can't sit at the desk. The dining-room at the back of the house is a continuation of the living area which contains the television, hi-fi and XBox console. Now, the children do get on fairly well together, but tend to prefer their own personal space. Often, when the bright-eyed boy has tired of telly or playing Gotham City or somesuch, he will move into the front room and the girl will watch music channels. If they are confined together too long they tend to bicker, or the older of the two starts to tease. So where can I go? I've got to press on with my writing if I am to make satisfactory progress towards full-time doctoral work come October. I can't really expect them to confine themselves to their bedrooms (I'd work in ours, but all the books are shelved downstairs and there's no floor space to squeeze in a desk/table), or not to make use of the facilities in the home. Child care, if I can get it is sporadic and of a couple of hours duration at the most. Maybe I'll have to start getting up r e a l l y early and start writing before anyone else gets up? Or go to bed in the wee small hours? Unfortunately, my most productive time is in the afternoon: prime argument time, if there's going to be one. It is quite frustrating. And there's another six weeks of it........