It seems that we have spent most of the last couple of days asleep.
After Monday night’s adventure it was about half past five before we staggered home to bed, which meant that when the phone rang at half past ten we weren’t up.
The telephone activated the dogs’ morning incontinence, so we had to get up then and chuck them out. We did all the usual morning things of coffee and dog-emptying, and washing and milling around the shops: and the plan for the day was that we would stay at home together and make our house beautifully clean again.
This idea lasted almost a minute before we realised that we were both yawning far too much to talk, never mind polish the mirrors, so we went back to bed instead.
This lasted far too long, and when we got up the day had had its day without us.
We debated our next move and eventually decided that we would clean the house instead of going to work. It is one of the nice things about being us that we have these marvellous options open to us.
We didn’t at all feel like cleaning the house, so in the end we inspired ourselves by telling ourselves that it was a magically mysterious Feng Thing whereby we would get rid of all of the stagnant energy along with the dust. That was my idea. Mark hardly laughed at all, and said that he was sure that would work splendidly.
We put some music on and started at the top and worked our way down. I can tell that I am starting to get old, because we played our favourite Sixties Greatest Hits, and these days instead of being thrilled by the magical hippy freedom of the lyrics, they just make me think that people should be obliged to cut their hair and get proper jobs instead of taking drugs on the beach.
We scrubbed everything until the house was once again gleaming and scented with lavender furniture polish, and then collapsed back into bed where we slept soundly until morning.
I woke up from a truly horrible dream in which Mark left me for a blonde, which upset me very much and made him laugh into his coffee a great deal. He said that he has spent far too much on being married to me to want to start all over again, even with a blonde, and that I was too good a cook for him to bother anyway.
This was a relief, and cheered me up for the day’s efforts, which started off with baking more cherry shortbread and then eventually turned into writing more letters to literary agents.
I am going to have to do something to distract myself. I have finished writing it now, have written to everybody that I like the look of, and now all I have got to do is fight the impulse to check my emails every five minutes to see if anybody has written back to me yet. Three months is a jolly long time to sit next to a computer jumping every time it dings.
I can’t remember what I used to do with my life before I was writing a book. I am sure I was busy but I can’t remember what with.
I expect I will think of something to do. I could always go and help Mark with the camper van, I have started painting pictures on the side but stopped when the weather got cold. I am not very brave about being chilly.
I suppose it would stop me from thinking sadly that maybe nobody will ever want to read my gargantuan literary efforts.
I could always borrow Mark’s thermal underwear.
Have a picture of a house I borrowed to put in my book.
