I am feeling a little the worse for alcohol-related wear.
This is one of the shocking things about getting old. I have had one glass of wine, one, and it has left me feeling fuzzy around the edges and just a touch confused. I am trying to marshal my thoughts into coherence with just a hint of dry wit, and the results so far have been completely rubbish.
Instead of diving excitedly on to the keyboard, the day’s adventures flowing from my fingertips with carefully-crafted ease, I read my emails, became distracted by a review on TripAdvisor, and finally drifted into the gentle quicksand of Facebook.
It has gone dark now, and I have procrastinated away my beautiful free evening, and am feeling cross with myself.
I came home from work early because nobody seemed to want to get in a taxi, and the illumination of hindsight has made it brilliantly plain that this was an unwise decision. One of the nice things about being on the taxi rank, especially when there are no customers, is that it is a perfect opportunity for luxurious inertia. I can read my library books and watch the gently bobbing activities of the little family of white pigeons who nest in the little turret on the top of the Chinese restaurant, and write to you, and then feel unreasonably irritated with some tiresome nuisance who interrupts me because they fancy getting in a taxi.
At home none of these occupations can be pursued with a clear conscience. The ironing board is out in the middle of the living room, laden with guilt, the pots need to be washed and the dogs need to be emptied.
When I came home I discovered that Mark had come home from work and was already doing some of these things on my behalf. He kindly suggested that he carried on by himself whilst I went upstairs to write to you. Obviously I accepted such a thoughtful offer, but the price of this idleness has been an uncomfortable awareness of shirked responsibility.
He wasn’t doing the ironing, partly because he can’t really tell which clothes are flat and which are crumpled, and doesn’t mind anyway. Still less hankerchiefs. I am on my own with that particular compulsion.
I had a glass of wine by way of medicating away remorse, at which point the drive to be creative was instantly submerged beneath an overwhelming longing to be asleep. I am going to give in to this very soon indeed.
It has not been a terribly exciting day in any case. I made some buns with lemon icing. I coloured the icing blue and put marshmallows on them, to look like sky, which they didn’t. I stewed the blackcurrants to make preserves tomorrow, and I emptied Lucy’s trunk all over the living room. This was another misjudgement, because I lost interest halfway through, when everything was in a huge mess. I wandered off and did other things, and then suddenly it was time to go to work, and I had to stuff half of it back without sorting it out.
It was a tiresome project anyway, and one which I have decided to resolve by chucking half of the stuff out and buying new, since most of it seems to have been outgrown or worn into rags.
Lucy does her own washing now that she is in the sixth form, and I do not have to adorn everything with name labels for the benefit of the school laundry, so things like tights can be discarded without having to have the labels trimmed off and re-attached to a new pair. This is a huge pleasure. I told her to visit Amazon and provide herself with pyjamas and socks on Daddy’s credit card.
Then I cut up her too-small pyjamas and turned them into dishcloths. Some of the dishcloths have still got the name labels sewn on, and I really don’t care. It is lovely when they grow up.
You will see from the picture that Mark’s father is still living on the coffee table. I have mentioned this to Mark but he has not done anything about it yet.
He is just putting it off.
