The man from the scrapyard rang to tell us that he was on his way over at half past seven this morning.
We could hardly believe it.
Perhaps he has a problem with enuresis, or maybe his wife is horribly flatulent, or something.
Either way, Mark dragged himself out of bed and off to the farm without much enthusiasm, leaving me to make a reluctant start on the pre-Christmas tree cleaning.
I started on the bathroom first, before I had even taken the washing downstairs.
If you do the nastiest job first, everything else seems gentle and mellow in comparison, and you have a feeling of achievement to start the day.
The bathroom was a pretty nasty job. Think of black mould and sprays of mis-spat toothpaste. Think of a soap dish, half filled with mucus-like dissolved soap. Think of the loo.
Let us skip over those images.
I cleaned everywhere. I hoovered and polished and scrubbed. I refilled the hand cream and changed toothbrush batteries.
I polished the taps until they gleamed.
When I had finished the bathroom it was time to spread my wings. I moved into our room where I swabbed away dust and polished the wardrobe.
This is a solid dark lump of furniture which I have endeavoured to make less bleakly Victorian by sticking interesting things to it. There is a poem there, written by Lucy whilst at primary school. It is a touching verse, telling me how much she loves me.
I was very pleased to be given this, years and years ago, because Lucy was a wild and feral sort of child, not given to outpourings of emotion. I even mentioned it to her teacher, who explained that it had been an assignment given to her, to write something to the person she loved best telling them why.
I said how surprised I was to learn that I was the object of Lucy’s affections. I said that I hadn’t thought that she loved anybody apart from the dog.
The teacher looked guilty.
“She wanted to write to the dog,” she admitted. “I insisted that it had to be a person. But you were her next choice.”
I stuck it to the wardrobe where I could see it and have treasured it ever since.
Mark came home from the farm with a huge pile of logs to stack in the shed, and then took my car off to get some new tyres. I was pleased about this, it is rubbish to have to keep stopping to blow a flat tyre up, which was my fate on Saturday night.
This irritating development meant that Mark took my flat tyre car to work on Sunday night, and I had to take Mark’s car to drop Oliver off at school and collect the chairs. This caused several interesting moments when I forgot that Mark’s car does not have six gears, but has reverse gear in the spot where sixth gear is supposed to be, by way of an exciting surprise for the unwary.
I have got my own car back now. The wheels are all beautifully round again.
Mark has got his car back as well. I have not mentioned wear and tear on the gear box.
I occupied the remains of the afternoon making chocolates. I was supposed to have made these to send to people in time for Advent, so obviously I have messed that one up.
Advent is one of those occasions which creeps up on you. I always like the idea of making wreaths and chocolates to send to people as well as the usual calendars, but inevitably I have barely put my shorts back in the drawer at the end of the summer when suddenly it is the fifteenth of November and too late to start doing anything exciting.
I have made two sorts of chocolates today, fudge ones and grape ones, after the splendid harvest which you might remember from September. I mean the grape harvest, obviously. I did not harvest any fudge.
I do not know which I like best. They are jolly good, although too rich to eat very many, and the grape ones are a bit surprising. I have made them myself, and it is still quite astonishing to bite into a grape-flavoured chocolate, even though I know what to expect.
I am going to make some more tomorrow and then get them in the post to people who might like interesting chocolates.
They can be a belated Advent Surprise.
