Handyman

You will be pleased to hear that Mark’s hand is recovering nicely.

It is not better yet, obviously.

We examined it with great interest when the plaster washed off it this morning, and were mildly disappointed to discover that there was almost nothing repellently gory or pus-ridden to behold. There are enormous swollen bruises on the back of his hand, but the cut itself, which is almost two inches long, is now just a dark line, and is beginning to knit itself together cleanly.

We were pleased about this really, even though it was not very exciting. This week the BBC has been issuing dire warnings about half of the population expiring from sepsis. It was even on The Archers a little while ago, and of course we are all vulnerable to having our world view manipulated by the ruthless power of the indifferent media, so I had been worrying about it, a little bit.

He hasn’t got sepsis, fortunately, so maybe it isn’t as inevitable a doom as the BBC might have us believe. We smeared it in Germolene, just to be on the safe side, and swathed it in plasters again. I do wish you could get tax rebates for not bothering the NHS with this stuff, perhaps I ought to write to Boris about it. That is £1.75 in Sterile Wound Dressings that I have funded out of my own personal pocket and they have saved, they ought to be jolly grateful. If everybody did that once a year they would be absolutely rolling in cash.

It is tiresomely sore all the same, and the swelling is making him inconveniently incapacitated. He is finding it difficult to do ordinary things like fasten buttons or cut up food. I have been offering to help with these tasks, but so far he has resisted, partly because I can’t do it without laughing, and it is an affront to his Manly Dignity.

He had to be very brave about it this afternoon, because our job of the day was to go and collect some more clutter to store in the yard.

Our back yard is already full to bursting with firewood. This should have been processed and stacked yesterday, but Mark didn’t really want to carry on with it after his hideous circular saw disaster, and so it is all still there.

There is so much that you can hardly walk down the path to the conservatory.

The conservatory is not much better. That has been filled with everything that was in the living room, and the bits of new kitchen that haven’t been installed yet. We are busy filling the living room with kitchen. Eventually the things out of the living room will go in the old kitchen, but that is still full of old kitchen. The old kitchen is going to come out and be used to make cupboards and shelves in the conservatory, but we can’t do that just yet because there is just so much stuff in the conservatory that you can hardly move.

It is not our finest domestic hour.

Today we had got to go and collect some second-hand worktops.

There are five of these and they are made of stone. They are entirely the wrong size and shape for our kitchen, but they are nice and perhaps more importantly,  exceptionally cheap, so Mark thought that probably he would be able to cut them up and glue them together.

They were in Grange Over Sands.

We took my taxi, which is bigger, and I drove, because it is better if Mark rests his hand, in between driving taxis all night and working all day.

Stone worktops are jolly heavy.

I mean really heavy.

Especially they are heavy if the usual heavy lifter of your partnership has got a sore hand.

Rarely would I have been so pleased to have a visit from Number One Daughter.

The chap helped us to load them into the car, and Mark anchored them down with some ratchet straps and timber.

Getting them out at the other end was a different matter.

Mark had to clear some of the firewood away first.

He got the circular saw out and cut it up.

This was very brave of him, especially because it was starting to go dark.

Also a bit of wood spun off and smacked him hard on his sore hand, which made him say some rude words, and then he trapped a finger on his other hand, which made him say some more.

In the end it was done, and we had a little space cleared against the wall.

We hauled the worktops out between us and tottered along the path to stack them in front of the compost heap. They were so heavy I could feel my knees starting to compress. I do not have the first idea how we are going to get them into the house and on top of the cupboards, we might have to wait until Number One Daughter comes to visit next Christmas.

All the same, they are going to look very pleasing. It will be lovely to have stone worktops, they will be cool and smooth for things like pastry and fudge.

I am going to have a lovely new kitchen. At the moment I have got a hideous mess, but one day it will be over and things will be clean and uncluttered and lovely. I am holding on to that thought.

I am looking forward to it.