Scary

I am sitting at my desk surrounded by scraps of paper which say things like “Total, £11,225, – costs.” “£1481 To Pay.” “Query Amazon bill.”

They are liberally scattered about like Alice In Wonderland’s playing cards and are every bit as troublesome. This is because I have started Doing Our Accounts.

The accounts do not exactly need doing just yet, because it is not April, but I have been worrying about them for a little while, and so I have embarked on an Investigation into our profligacy.

This is a wearisome process, because it makes it impossible to deceive myself about my general financial recklessness. I have gone through the bank statements and the year’s purchasing history for things like Amazon and eBay, and now it is all there, in black and white. Somebody has bought the expensive flip flops, the ones with the flowers on them. Somebody has bought fuchsias and daffodil bulbs, china mugs and chocolates. Somebody has even bought Junior Sea Demon Hologram Goggles, and lots and lots of books in a series called Classroom Assassin, or something horrible.

Somebody now has an overdraft and had better start saving up for the tax bill.

Of course the tax bill will not be for ages, nearly a year, and so in the spirit of light hearted recklessness, I am not going to worry about it just yet. All sorts of things could happen between now and then. I could die or win the lottery. It is depressing to contemplate that the former is the more likely of the two.

I started the day with a trip to the doctor, talking about dying, which I am not intending to do for some time yet, despite the tax bill. This was for a blood test to check the progress of Hard To Spell Disease, and to find out whether or not the drugs have worked.

I do not like blood tests.

They are not helped along by the difficulty that the nurse at the surgery is a bit frightened of me. I was sternly unimpressed, in an especially intimidating stony-faced sort of way, when a blood test went horribly wrong once, and we finished up squirting blood on to the surgery floor and the front of her apron. I took the needle out myself, and said, witheringly: “I think that’s quite enough of that, don’t you?”

Ever since then she gets into a bit of a flap whenever I walk in through the door of the Treatment Room.

Mark came with me this morning, to help calm both of us down.

Blood tests make me feel sick.

I don’t quite know why this might be, because it isn’t as if they hurt much, generally: but there is something about the needly sensation that makes me feel horribly queasy. I don’t look at the needle going in, which helps, nor at the blood coming out, which is worse, but I can still feel myself going white. Something about the sliding sensation of the needle.

Of course it all went wrong. She stuck the needle in one arm, and waggled it about for ages, but no blood came out. She said that the vein had collapsed, as if I had been doing heroin instead of having breakfast, but Mark, who was watching with an utter absence of squeamishness, said afterwards that she just missed it. He said that this was my own fault for being horrible to her in the past.

The nurse looked at me and thought perhaps we should leave it until another day, but Mark said, authoritatively, that we would get it over and done with. I did not like this idea much but was glad afterwards, because the second go was fine.

I tottered back home and collapsed in front of the computer.

Mark and Lucy went off for a day’s driving practice.

Sometimes perhaps being a bit scary has its advantages.

The foundations for the conservatory seem to have become covered in paw prints.

Have a picture of the Lake District.