May bills paid in full

We slept for an awfully long time.

It is lovely to have the dog back. It was very nice to stay with my parents, but it is oddly disorientating not to have a solid lump of smelly dog snoring contentedly in a bit of the bed where you think that would really quite like to put your feet.

I think he missed us as well, because he smiled and smiled for ages when we got back. His smile is an upsetting sort of grimace where he curls his lips back from his teeth a bit like a grizzly bear does before it leaps on you and tears you into bite-sized pieces, except that when the dog does it it is because he is very pleased indeed about something, and an indication that he is so joyful that mere tail-wagging is inadequate to express his feelings.

It was ace to wake up to our house being as it should be and the dog being there this morning, although he doesn’t like getting up, and I had to tickle his paws, which makes him cross, until he finally jumped off the bed a bit sulkily.

Once we were up we had to dash round getting everything done before we went to work. We emptied the dog in the Library Gardens, which is always our first job, because although he is usually quite happy to stay in bed until we are organised, I feel guilty if I think that he might need a wee, because of course he can’t talk.

Oliver called last night to ask us to post his Lego helicopter to him, preferably without dismantling it: which took Mark ages of careful packaging with bubble wrap and bits of cardboard, and then we stood in a patient queue of people in the post office for ages because somebody in front of us had thought that Saturday morning would be a good time to renew all his family’s passports, tax his car and review his holiday insurance.

We got it done in the end, of course, as you always do no matter how long and frustrating the queue, and of course we weren’t late for anything anyway, since we start work whenever we get round to it, so we went home and did the washing and then Mark went off to work whilst I had another frustrating hour trying to organise an upgrade for Lucy’s mobile phone in the computer.

All this online stuff is, to my mind, absolutely beyond fantastic, but on days when it is not doing what you expect it to do it is dreadfully irritating. After a lot of very puzzled attempts to get the phone that she wanted to Add To Basket in the end I was reduced to requesting an online Instant Chat with somebody, who in the end turned out to be unconvincingly called Dee Dee, who seemed to do typing with a Southern American accent, saying things along the lines of: “Why, yes, Ma’am, we sure can fix that for you right now, is there anything else y’all want me to do for you?”

Theyy have promised to post it to Lucy at school. Since Mark had gone to work already there was no problem in giving them his credit card details, and I took advantage of the moment to order some online dressmaking fabric as well.

It is such a nuisance to have to keep going to work when there are so many interesting things that I would like to do. I am dying to get back to the skirt that I made for the reunion party and alter the bits that I didn’t have time to do properly, also to sort out the scary seam that might disintegrate into loose threads at any moment, because I think it is pushing my luck a bit to risk it twice. I have put it on the sewing corner of my desk and looked longingly at it, but had to go to work anyway. I have got lots more fabric coming now, in some gorgeous colours, because I have discovered an online place which sells remnants really cheaply. I thought that maybe Mark wouldn’t notice, but I forgot to wipe it off the iPad and he borrowed it in the taxi rank later and came across and tapped on the window and said: “I seem to have bought several lengths of cerise and turquoise coloured cotton jersey, do you know anything about it?” and I had to pretend that I must have done it in my sleep.

So we went dutifully off to work, because of the school fees and not going nearly as often as we should have done in the last few days, so we are going to have to spend quite a lot of time sitting optimistically on the taxi rank now.

The thing is, that although to our joy and celebration we have completely managed to pay all of May’s bills successfully, tomorrow it is June and we have got to start all over again.

Ah well.