I was greatly heartened today by many messages of encouragement from various sources, with brilliantly creative ideas of how I might be revenged upon Mr. Buzzoffwithoutpaying.
I did notice that none of the various authors seem to have fully grasped the doctrine of turning the other cheek. This was rather splendid, if there are any virtuous sanctimonious types out there among you then they don’t write comments.
It was absolutely splendid to read, like being part of a large tribe who were all outraged on my behalf, what an ace warm feeling it was.
I needed the warm feeling because of being further enraged this morning when the police called to say that they had spoken sternly to him and he had agreed to pay, so would I kindly send him my bank details.
I did this, along with a friendly message to make it easy for him to do it without loss of face, and an appreciative note, only to discover later on that he had only put twenty five pounds in my bank, not the thirty five pounds that he owed me. He sent me a long-winded text later on to say that this was all he thought it was worth, and added an awful lot of drivel about how his girlfriend had been traumatised by the whole thing and he thought he might sue me.
Obviously I was scorchingly cross, and only the greatest of self control enabled me not to dash round to his house and put absolutely all of the Readers’ Advice suggestions into practice there and then.
I didn’t, of course, and reminded myself that it was only a tenner and that it didn’t matter. Mark said kindly that only people with no money make a fuss like that about taxi fares, which tends to be true, and that it was very probably his girlfriend’s house, not his at all. He thought this because successful people are usually really nice to have in the taxi, open and friendly. Also he thought that Mr. Buzzoffwithoutpaying had something of an inferiority feeling and was trying to look powerful and in charge in front of his girlfriend. People who don’t have any money do this as well.
I thought that he was right, he is clever at understanding things like that. In the end I could laugh about it and forgot all about it for the rest of the day, because I had such a busy day making the first of the Christmas sweets.
This is a tremendous fiddle and takes ages, especially since I make a lot of them. By the time I had finished absolutely everything, including me, was covered in splodges of chocolate and apple jelly.
When the dogs came home they licked the carpet underneath the work surface for ages, and poor Mark had to help me clear up when he got in from his day working at the farm, because I had lost track of the time. We discovered afterwards that we had forgotten to wind the clock up, and it had stopped.
We boiled a couple of large kettles of water and scrubbed everything clean and felt pleased with ourselves. I was especially pleased because my new boots had arrived today. I did not buy them in the end, they were a present, and I have felt deeply, warmly grateful ever since I put them on.
They are lined with soft sheepskin right to the toes, and my feet are warm in a way I think they have never been before. I have been in the taxi for ages now, and my feet are not in the least cold. This is a brilliant thing, it is easy to get very chilled indeed sitting still in a taxi for hours at night. The weather is especially cold at the moment, it is minus four again already, and it isn’t midnight yet.
I have never had real thickly lined boots before, and I can tell you they are a complete pleasure for my knobbly old-lady feet. They don’t rub anywhere, or hurt, and my feet are as warm as if I were wearing my slippers in front of the fire at home.
I am feeling very contented indeed, there is no feeling better than being warm enough, although there are a lot of very good feelings to choose from.
At this moment it is my very favourite.
