Wordless

I have just shouted an insult and turned the Radio Four news off. The interviewer had said to somebody: “So, do you feel that Brexit might perhaps have become an existential problem for the UK then?”

I cannot tell you how indifferent I was to hearing the response to that question, or, indeed, to any question about Brexit at the moment.

Worse, I absolutely loathe the word. It is an idle composite shorthand dreamed up by some tiresome journalist seeking something to catch the public imagination, and misfortunately succeeding. We are now stuck with this ugly term for all eternity. It is even worse than one of my other pet linguistic hates, which is the word ‘blog’.

I have a lot of linguistic pet hates, actually. I won’t talk about them here. It was never the purpose of this diary to become a rant, despite occasional temptation.

In fact it was my first update on our imminent departure from the EU for some days. I have become so bored with it that I do not put the radio on any more. We have been busy getting on with our own lives. I am very glad indeed that I am not Theresa May.

Today we have been continuing with our programme of Improvements.

Mark has carried on building the wall in the living room.

He has not yet stuck the flat bit on it yet, which is an important part of wall construction, although you can no longer walk through it because of all of the posts. We are going to have a cupboard full of shelves and coat hooks on one side of it, and a dining table and chairs on the other.

We are going to put a large mirror on the wall on each side of the dining table, the way they do in Indian restaurants.

This is not because of any burning wish to watch ourselves eating. I have no wish at all to do this. Eating is one of my possibly slightly unhinged uncomfortable things.

I do not like listening to anybody else eating. Noisy eaters make me want to run away. When I am feeling particularly irritable I can’t even bear listening to myself eating.

I don’t like words relating to eating, talking about pet hate words, which I know I said that I wouldn’t do, just a moment whilst I indulge myself.

Munch, scoff, guzzle, nibble. Even fairly innocuous ones like ‘meal’ or ‘chew’. They are so loathsome that I can hardly even manage to write them.

Of course I know that this is mental behaviour but don’t care. We have lots of nice eating times so clearly I do not need to be locked up for my own safety yet.

The function of the mirrors will be to reflect light back into the room and make it feel more spacious. We have got one in the bathroom which does this very well indeed. When you light a candle it is reflected in the mirror behind it. Then not only the candle, but also the reflected candle, is reflected in the mirror opposite, and suddenly we have got lots and lots of candle flames for the price of one.

This appeals to my skinflint soul.

Also it makes the bathroom feel enormous. We hardly notice that there isn’t actually enough space to turn round.

We are going to do this in the living room, behind the table. Today we measured the space carefully, a couple of times to be on the safe side, and then rang the window makers in Kendal.

They are the people who very helpfully mended the camper van for us when we had the tragedy with the back window. They are going to bring us some mirrors across on Tuesday, and said cheerily that we could just send them some cash whenever we had got some.

I am very excited about this. It is one thing putting a wall up. Decorating it with huge mirrors is another, and far more thrilling, thing altogether. Mark says that the really expensive thing is the glue, so I hope that we have a busy weekend.

I helped a bit with the wall, although not much. I had lots of useful ideas and suggestions, although it looks as though Mark ignored pretty much all of them. In the end I went off to clean the bathroom and left him to get on with it.

It was all so exciting that I did not in the least want to come to work.

Not to worry. There is always tomorrow.