I am pleased to announce that we have a clean bathroom.
I woke up today feeling all right, for the first time in ages. My head did not ache, and my throat did not feel as if it was grimly clenched around the savage blade of Macbeth’s bloody dagger. I did not feel in the least sick, and the prospect of getting out of bed did not fill me with a dreary sense of gloom.
Once out of bed I did not slope off upstairs to crawl miserably back into it. I have done this several times this week, but it has been a guilty secret. Today, the very last day of the year, has been a day of painless contentment.
I have not consumed any pharmaceutical restoratives all day, and even better, have not been longing to, so clearly I have not become addicted to them in the last week. This is good news, because they are always very concerned about this issue when you purchase them at the chemist in the village. It is much easier to go to Asda, where they don’t care.
I am recovered.
It is a joy beyond measure.
We did some cleaning. Mark cleaned the windows, because the window cleaners have retired, and I washed things and dusted.
Whilst we did this we considered our ambitions for the new year. I will not call them ‘resolutions’. This is because this morning I looked at last year’s diary entry and discovered that I have had quite a profound lack of success with last year’s resolutions, almost none of which I have remembered, never mind kept. You will not be surprised to recollect that I was disorganised, fat and unfit this time last year as well.
With this in mind, my ambitions this year are rather more modest.
The most pressing ambitions were actually achieved before the end of the day. These were to change the wheel on Mark’s car because of an irritating puncture, and to clean the bathroom. Both of these issues have been bothering us for some time, and I am pleased to say that for the time being, at least, they are truly resolved.
After those we had to think a little more carefully. There were the usual obvious ones about being thinner and fitter. I shan’t even bother to tell you about these, because I am merely laying myself open to mockery at a later date.
Apart from that our New Year’s resolutions are as follows:
1. Find some new window cleaners.
2. Save up some money for next Christmas and start making Christmas cards and presents in October instead of at the last minute in a horrible panic which makes everything go wrong anyway.
3. Repaint the house.
4. Build a new shed in the garden.
5. Build a new shed in the field.
6. Make lots of money at Mark’s currently non-paying job and become dot com millionaires.
7. Work out why nobody is answering my emails about my story and do something about it. Become JK Rowling.
8. Fix the brakes on the camper van. I have not told you about these but we would like them to work, which they don’t.
9. Rebuild the bits of the camper van we have not got round to yet.
10. Lose some weight and become fit. Remember to feed the children every single day. Don’t say things until I have thought about them first. Remember dentist appointments. Don’t ever have four glasses of wine, especially whilst talking to people I would like to impress. Find a web page to look at on the taxi rank instead of Facebook, one which has got interesting things on it. Build some new bookshelves. Cut Mark’s credit card up or give it back to him, one or the other.
That lot should do it.
I shall be a reformed character.
As it happens we are now on our own for the New Year. As you know, Lucy has gone off to her friend’s house, and this afternoon Harry rang to request Oliver’s assistance in celebrating: so both children have gone off to parties.
We don’t mind, because we are working anyway, of course, so we shall watch the fireworks together and see if we can make it feel romantic.
I am looking forward to it.
The picture is not our house, but maybe next year.
