I thought I might feel sad not to be on holiday any more and to be back on the taxi rank, but actually I don’t.
In fact, after all the exciting extravagance of the last couple of weeks it is rather gentle and soothing.
It is calm and quiet, here in the dark, and I have a new book. In fact I have got two new books, a biography of Boris Johnson, and one of Walt Disney. They are my Christmas present to me. There was a biography of Jeremy Corbyn in the Manchester bookshop that I wanted very much as well, that will be the next on the list when the cash starts rolling back in.
It is double time tonight, which is helping this process along quite nicely.
I have drunk so much wine during the last week that it is lovely to be drinking peppery hot tea again. There are mince pies and pork pies in my picnic, and lots of interesting Christmas market cheese. There is even a tub of home made chocolate and fudge, and I am feeling happy with my lot.
It is quite odd to feel that it is over. I have been making cards and calendars, chocolate and candles for so long that time is stretching out in front of me, gloriously empty. I could do all sorts of things now. I could finish making the dress I started last year, or I could finish painting the picture on the wall by the front door, or I could start planting things in the garden, or I could have another go at writing a book. January is the time for all of these things, largely because there is almost nothing else that needs to be done.
In fact it is not quite over. We have got another week of seasonal festivities before we can hang up our taxi picnic bags for the winter. We will work until New Year’s Day and then it will go very quiet indeed. The next time after that when we will earn enough money for it to count as a living wage will be Valentine’s Day.
We do not mind this. My parents have very generously subsidised the school fees, and we have got some money saved up as well, and of course we will still go to work. It will just be a very quiet time, full of bringing home logs and making our lives tidy again. I like January very much. On the years when we have managed to put some cash away it is my very favourite time of year, apart from my other favourite times of year, obviously.
We will draw a veil over those Januaries when we have not got any savings. They are anxious times with too much shouting.
Mark went off to the farm again today, and came back with a taxi full of firewood and three joyously muddy dogs, because of course Number One Daughter’s dog Tonka is at our house as well at the moment. He is Roger Poopy’s fifteen minutes’ older brother, and for the last couple of days Mark has taken him to the farm, where he has been teaching him that sheep are not to be looked at under any circumstances.
It is not very difficult to teach a dog something when they are with other dogs who know already, and Tonka has been a surprisingly quick learner, helped along by being bellowed at when he is wicked and fed on Good Dog Sausage when he has been good. Mark said that he was so worried about getting it right today that when they got out of the taxi at the farm, he did not even look once at the sheep. He came home ecstatic at the knowledge of his own virtue, and we all told him how clever he had been.
I do not think there are very many sheep in Guildford, which is where he mostly lives, but you never know when it might be handy to know that they are a brilliant thing not to chase.
I had the quietest day imaginable, because not only were Mark and the dogs not there, Number One Daughter and her family were not there either. They went off to spend Boxing Day with Ritalin Boy’s Other Grandma.
A sudden hush descended on the house as they left. They are what Jane Austen might have called diverting company. Number One Son-In-Law discovered yesterday that it was very entertaining to come up behind me, lift me up unexpectedly and then run about whilst I shrieked. This is only possible because they are ridiculously fit. I am a stoutly built person in my declining years, and not easily removed from the ground, still less carried at a run. It has astonished me to discover that this activity is a possibility at all, and have been surprised to note how very emotionally attached to the ground I am.
Oliver had woken up to the happy knowledge that lots of new games had been downloaded on to his Playstation, and Lucy had some beautiful new skin toned inks for practising drawing.
I have barely seen either of them all day.
I padded contentedly around the silent house.
I washed up and cleaned the hearth and hung up washing.
Then I switched Radio Four on for the Afternoon Drama, and did the ironing.
There was loads of it, the ironing, not the Afternoon Drama. In fact there was considerably more of the former than the latter.
The drama was about the life of John Betjeman, who was, it seems, something of a muppet in his youth. I had not realised that his horrid Varsity Rag poem was an account of his own undergraduate behaviour, and was quite cross with him for being such a first-class idiot, oh, the wisdom of old age.
The picture was not taken today. The picture was the pre-Christmas production line, which I thought you might be interested to see.
I will not be doing it again for absolutely ages.
