We had got to get up early this morning because I had arranged to have a visitor at twelve.
This does not sound like very much of a hardship, but of course it was. We had barely been asleep at all before it was half past ten and the breadmaking machine was beeping downstairs and the dogs were making whimpering noises next to the bed. They do this when they want us to get up, because we immediately panic and go rushing downstairs with them in order to forestall a puddle on the carpet. Actually they almost never want to go out really, what they actually want is to come and bounce all over our bed, licking our noses and being a nuisance.
Sometimes Mark gives me a kiss, which drives them mental with jealousy, and they will come and try to thrust their wet dog noses in between us. Mark says that this is a good thing really, because it massively reduces the likelihood that we will ever have any more children. There is something very unsexy about a smelly dog breathing heavily in your face. Also when we laugh, they smile back, with their teeth bared. This is funny, because it makes them look like miniature wolves, but it screws their noses up and makes them sneeze. Dog snot is also not sexy.
In the end we shoved the dogs off on to the floor, and I washed the pots whilst Mark had warm maple syrup bread for breakfast and then went off to the bank where he poured the weekend’s takings into the black hole of our winter overdraft.
Mark went off to the farm afterwards, and I had my visitor, who was a taxi driver who needed some help to telephone the council. It is a source of eternal amazement to me that taxi drivers, who will face down drunken fist-waving cocaine enriched louts without a second thought, are reduced to agonies of anxious self doubt when confronted by the teenage girl behind the desk at the council offices.
I dug out my middle-class vowel sounds and phoned the council, which sorted it out rather faster than I had expected, leaving me with a whole clear hour before my friend Kate arrived.
This was wonderful, and I filled it by making two batches of shortbread, one with cherries and coconut, and one with almonds and vanilla. This was a very useful achievement indeed. Mark comes home from the farm ravenous every night, and if there are no biscuits he will slope about looking hopefully in tins and in the fridge and eating things that I have been saving for tomorrow’s dinner.
I had got it all done and cooling on the side by the time Kate turned up, which was jolly nice. Really I should have gone over to her house to see her, because she always comes over to visit me, and she lives miles away. I don’t because I spend so much time in my car already that I hate getting in it when I don’t have to, and Kate kindly understands this and makes the long journey herself. I am always guiltily grateful for this.
I haven’t seen her to talk to for ages, and so we drank several cups of tea and coffee and ate a lot of shortbread whilst we caught up with our adventures, which were not terrifically exciting. Kate has had quite a lot of adventures over the past few years, and is having a peaceful break. This is a very good thing indeed but makes for less horrified gossip.
We had a joyfully scandal-and-shock free afternoon, talking about the children’s GCSEs and about plumbing deficiencies and tidy houses and thought how nice it was that life has settled down a bit. By that I mean her life, not mine, obviously, mine has been fairly dull for quite a while.
In the end it was time for me to get ready for work. Kate buzzed off on her epic journey back across the county, and Mark came home and ate the shortbread.
It is quiet on the taxi rank. I have made almost no money, but have written lots of story.
I am going to go back and get on with it again now.
