Prince Harry, whom you might remember is the chap who hasn’t married Number Two Daughter, was in charge of the Today Programme this morning.
I thought that he did a jolly good job of it. He decided that he didn’t want to broadcast the usual prophecies of doom and misery, but wanted good news and achievements to be discussed instead. In consequence we had the most upbeat Today Programme that I have heard in years, full of news about how young people are behaving better with knives, elephants are not being shot by so many poachers, and Barack Obama can stay in bed later in the mornings.
There was also some alarming advice about not using plastic bottles. I would not use plastic bottles if Asda would sell their Apple and Blackcurrant squash in anything else. I reuse them a lot of times, due to being parsimonious rather than socially responsible, because of taking drinks out to work, and then making them into little greenhouses for plants in the spring, but I was embarrassed to realise that quite often I throw them away after that. I hope none of them have gone into the sea and been eaten by a turtle.
On the whole I thought that they ought to offer Prince Harry a proper job, he did very well and nobody talked about Europe at all. This was a huge improvement and I wish they would consider carrying on in the same vein for a while. I have stopped listening to the news lately, because most of it is not very interesting, and the rest is horrible.
Like Prince Harry, I do not talk about politics on here, because it only makes people irritated and cross, and nobody wants to read things that make them feel cross. Also since lots of very bright people, with all sorts of handy information at their fingertips, can’t organise a quick happy ever after for us, I can’t see that I could do very much better from the front seat of my taxi. Hence I am better keeping my general opinions to myself.
The nice thing about the Today Programme was that it provided a pleasant background to the start of day jobs, most of which involved laundry. This was excessive today because of investigating the children’s luggage yesterday. Children’s school laundry is a nuisance because it all has to be ironed, even pyjamas, in case Matron secretly thinks that I am a Bad Parent when Oliver gets ready for bed. Nobody would think that Mark was a Bad Parent, even if Oliver turned up at school wearing his pyjamas and they were crumpled with no name tapes sewn in them. Some things are inevitably a mother’s responsibility. The problem with being a feminist is that now I have got to have a job as well.
I have not bothered with my job tonight, because even on double time last night we only did three jobs each, so tonight we stayed at home. We have got a lot of driving taxis to do when the New Year celebrations start, so we are going to stay at home until the weekend starts, which will be a happy thing to do.
Mark does not have to go to his other non-lucrative job tomorrow, so we are going to have a day of catching up with ourselves. We need to haul some logs, and the back door needs to be mended. This has got a problem with it which means that when you shut it properly it does not open, and you have got to kick it in the right place. Sometimes this does not work either, and then you have got to get Mark to come and smack the top of it as well. I had got to come in through the front door the other day, which by a fortunate chance of fate was open. I had not been expecting this, because we hadn’t used it for as long as I could remember, we must have forgotten to close it when the lodger left.
Just a note for the security-conscious among you, you do not need to worry. It does not matter about burglars, because if we can’t get the door open then they probably won’t be able to either, and Oliver is still hoping for a chance to shoot one if they do.
If you are a burglar, you are too late anyway, because Mark is going to mend it tomorrow.
Have a picture of our Christmas card, because I ran out of printer ink and lots of them didn’t get sent this year, so if I should have sent you one and didn’t I am really sorry, it just all happened at an expensive moment and printer ink costs about a thousand pounds a gallon.
It was drawn by Lucy. I think it sums the family up rather well.
