Grumpy

I have had rather a grim day.

I have been feeling thoroughly and unrelievedly grumpy.

This is, I think, down to the moody-compulsive-truth-telling aspect of the Certain Age that I have achieved at the moment.

There is a mood which descends on me ever now and again in which everything about life, every tiny detail, parades itself in front of me in inflated Technicolour.

In this frame of mind it is absolutely impossible to ignore something which is not quite right. Lid not replaced on the toothpaste, tablecloth left askew, hideous unrepayable overdraft, whatever it is, it appears in my consciousness in vivid, tiny-pixelated detail, and must be brought to the surface and discussed immediately. Delay is not an option.

For discussed, read shouted.

Also, just for my mother’s benefit, please don’t panic that we might have a hideous unrepayable overdraft, because we haven’t at the moment, because of the summer.

The tablecloth was not straight, though.

I shouted this morning.

This was because I had had a busy night last night and did not come home from work until four in the morning.

I did not much want to get up when the alarm went off at six.

Mark made coffee and apologised but it didn’t help. He offered to take the dogs out and get himself ready for work, but that didn’t help either.

I said that I was fed up of working and cleaning the bathroom as my chief amusements in life, even though the bathroom is actually clean at the moment. There are six of us and it won’t be very long until it isn’t, so I was getting cross about it in advance, a sort of deposit of crossness. It would be good if this turns out to reduce the bulk of the crossness, which will happen when the taps are sticky and black mould is starting to creep around the plugholes, and everybody has left half of their hairstyle in the bottom of the bath. I shall let you know if it helps.

Mark made mildly reassuring sympathetic noises and ate his breakfast rather hastily, after which he went to work. I did all of the daily things that were also making me feel cross, like pegging out washing and emptying dogs. I couldn’t concentrate on anything at all then, so I went back to bed.

I slept for ages, but the awful thing was that when I got up, I didn’t feel better.

I felt gritty-eyed and sorry for myself.

I took the dogs for a walk, and when I came back I put Supertramp on the CD player and burst into tears.

This was especially rubbish behaviour, because I couldn’t think of anything to cry about particularly, except Supertramp, which really I should have outgrown by now. Also it upset the dogs, the crying, not the Supertramp.

I was cross with myself as well as sorry for myself then, so I lit a candle and some strongly-flavoured incense sticks and thought that I would do something nice as a restorative present for myself.

I cleaned out my taxi.

This is not an especially nice thing to do, think sweaty sandalled feet and other people’s chewing gum: but it is beyond nice when it is done. It is lovely to have a steering wheel that is not sticky and a carpet that is free from picnic crumbs.

When I had finished I sprayed the seats with the Disneyland Hotel perfume that we bought on our holiday a couple of years ago. This is always a happy touch. It is the perfume that they use in the lovely hotel, and just the smallest waft of it takes me straight back to thick carpets and good food and glorious holiday hedonism.

I should have cleaned Mark’s taxi as well, but I didn’t. This was partly because it had got too late, but really because I was doing something nice for me, and much as I love Mark, I did not think I had got a generous gesture in me at the moment.

I went to Sainsbury’s and bought melon and kiwi fruit and strawberries for everybody’s dinner, and arranged them, with Disneyland Hotel artistry, on everybody’s plates. I had to just chuck mine into a tub, because of it being a picnic, but this didn’t matter, because it was dark by the time I got round to eating it anyway.

Oliver came downstairs to eat his, which I served up with pizza, and said loyally that it was the nicest dinner that he had ever eaten. He talked about his scholarship exam and explained that he is going to tell Gordonstoun that he wants to join the Diplomatic Service when he has grown up, in order to try and make the world a happier place.

I was beginning to feel as though the world was a happier place. I left Oliver painting his bedroom and went to work in my beautifully-scented taxi, where I suddenly remembered that I was in the middle of reading an exceptionally good library book.

I had a flask of chai, and melon, and tried out my new machine for taking card payments. This was absolutely brilliant, and made me feel as though I have become a streamlined modern-age business.

I was not exactly happy at the end of the day, but a sort of calm contentedness had begun to seep into my soul. I felt warm and peaceful and glad to be in a satisfactory world.

I think probably things are going to be all right.