Somebody called this afternoon and offered Mark a job.
It isn’t really a real job as such, not the sort where you get a pension and a company car and a performance review, not that I have ever lasted long enough in any job for any of the above. It is an emergency temporary mopping up flood water sort of job.
Of course he agreed to do it, because apart from the whole social-responsibility-big-society-bring-your-own-wellies mood which is becoming popular around here this week, also you can’t make any money in a taxi at the moment.
We both regretted it immediately as soon as we realised we would have to get out of bed early in the morning for him to go and do it. This is very tiresome indeed and will completely mess up our carefully nurtured inner body clock harmony and means I will have to walk the dogs by myself. I said that they were probably so desperate that they wouldn’t mind if he didn’t turn up until eleven, but he said that that was not at all in the spirit of Cumbrians Pulling Together so we would just have to bite the bullet and set an alarm, and also we have earned about forty quid between us over the last few days and he had got an expensive wife to keep.
It is still a complete nuisance, because we have got such a lot of other stuff to do at the moment, and now we are going to finish up with most of it not done. In any case we had planned to spend pretty much the whole of tomorrow in bed.
I am aware this sounds ridiculously lazy, but actually it was intended as a sort of pre-emptive sleep, by me, anyway, although I have some dark suspicions that Mark might have had other ideas. The thing is that tomorrow night, after spending the day in bed and loafing about drinking coffee and occasionally popping out to empty the dogs, we have got to drive taxis until four, and then drive over to York after that because we have got Lucy’s carol concert to attend in the morning, and now the whole brilliantly laid plan will have to be re-thought.
I don’t know how people manage to do employment, it takes up such an awful lot of time. The man at the agency who rang him and begged him to go didn’t just say thank you and go away either, he sent lots of tiresome text messages about wanting copies of Mark’s passport and NI number and then rang up and was persistent when I said we were too busy to bother and would get round to it later.
The whole thing is such an enormous fuss, driving a taxi is much easier. Anyway, if Mark lasts a week I will be amazed, he is getting to be as bad at being employed as I am, a day or two should be enough to satisfy his social conscience, at least I jolly well hope so, because the wages are rubbish.
Anyway, in between trying to ignore the man from the recruitment agency we have had a busy day. It has rained, hard last night and on and off today, so poor Glenridding, which is the next village across the pass from us, is under water again. Fortunately we have never been tempted to live there and we have listened to the poor unfortunates who do with a mixture of sympathy and horror and guilty relief that it is them and not us.
I had an e-mail from Oliver last night which complained that he didn’t have any Christmas letters and would I send some immediately, eventually we worked it out this morning, and dispatched a pack of twenty cards for him to hand out at school. After that I wrapped the children’s Christmas presents and then made a new skirt out of a remnant of black denim that I bought online for a fiver in the summer, so that I have got something smart and tidy to wear for the school carol concerts which are looming large on the horizon to be attended later on in the week.
Of course it is still very early to be wrapping presents, but Lucy comes home the day after tomorrow, and Oliver not long after that, and if everything is wrapped up in advance of their arrival then there is no chance of accidental discoveries, especially since the only spare space in the house is the loft. This has become an all purpose site for storing children’s presents, children’s luggage and also any guests we might have. Life is much less haphazard if everything is wrapped up and tidily out of the way.
Thus I spent much of the morning, and all of the Sellotape, feeling very Christmassy and singing along loudly and happily to a CD of Christmas Carols In Winchester Cathedral, and eating chocolates and swathing presents in miles and miles of lovely bright wrapping paper whilst Mark did some electronic mending in Oliver’s room: and then in the afternoon I made myself a skirt which has had to be taken in because I have lost weight lately, goodness knows why.
This is really tiresome because all of my trousers are now too big. Since I have not been deliberately attempting to become thinner I have got no great confidence that I am likely to stay thinner and so there is no point in buying new trousers that will not keep falling down, because when I get rounder again I will undoubtedly be depressed both by their tightness and by the cash thus wasted.
I made the skirt to fit the Fatter Me, and then put some darts in the back so that I can wear it now, and then take them out should I inadvertently inflate again, which I thought was a marvellously cunning plan and which seems to have worked very well so far, and I now have a garment which fits splendidly.
I am posting this early so that we can get an early night, since it looks as if we are going to have to get up in the middle of it.
See you tomorrow.
