Might not be divorce now

It is the Big Day.

I am just having a quick few minutes to start this now, whist it is quiet, because I expect that we will be first busy and then drunk later.

It is the calm before the storm.

Any time now  Mark will be home, followed by Number One Son-In-Law and then the Peppers, and then we are going to hoist the divorce solar panel up on to the wall.

Number One Son-In-Law has got some climbing kit, and the Peppers have got a big ladder, and Mark has borrowed Ted’s block and tackle.

It might be wonderful or it might be the most disastrous disaster.

The solar panel is massive. It is so heavy that I can’t even shunt it out of the way in the yard by myself. Mark has got some big bolts but I can’t help but have a tiny inner fear that the side of the house will just fall off. It is very heavy indeed.

I hope that this does not happen, neither now nor in three weeks time when we get the breath of autumn’s being winds.

I am going to trust Mark and not think about that. I hope that he has thought about it on my behalf.

I have run around all of the day. Obviously all of those people coming for dinner and hard labour has involved some catering efforts, and I have made an enormous shepherd’s pie and a white-chocolate-and-Baileys cheesecake. The pie can just be shoved in the oven and left to get on with itself and there will be so much left that they can all come again tomorrow if they like.

They have got to get it up past the conservatory, the solar panel not the shepherd’s pie, obviously. That is, they have got to take the boards off the house end of the conservatory and somehow shove it up through the gap. There is no glass there because we were waiting for the solar panel and also we have not yet saved up enough. We will have to save up enough soon, because we have ordered the glass now. I made Mark do this in order too encourage him to panic about the solar panel, and it has worked.

It has stood in the yard for three years now and I am feeling very pleased indeed to think that it is going to go to its final resting place on the wall.

I read somewhere that the Government is going to start giving you a grant to put a solar panel on your wall. They are encouraging this because they appear to be in agreement with Mark that you ought to have your water running through a load of solar tubes before it comes out of your taps. I bet Boris bloody Johnson has not had to put up with one in the back garden of Number Ten for three years. He would soon have changed his tune if it had been his washing catching on it all of the time.

We have not applied for the grant, because the solar panel is not going to cost us anything except a large box of wine and some shepherd’s pie, but I might apply for it in hindsight. We could always buy some more wine with it if we get it.

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It is the middle of the night and I am very much the worse for wear.

This is because I have drunk too much wine. Also I have eaten too much shepherd’s pie and cheesecake.

All the same, we have got a thing on the wall. It is not yet a solar panel because there are no solar tubes on it yet. They are still in the shed. I do not mind them being there because they do not interfere with pegging the washing out. They will go on the solar panel on the wall sooner or later. Mark says that the water must be connected to them first and that he must insert the new water tank.

It is not exactly a new water tank. It is an old one that he found in a skip. It needs some small modification and it will do the job just brilliantly.

I am not going to ask. I do not think I am likely to have hot water this week.

They have done a magnificent job. There is a picture, taken before it went dark, which it did halfway through. It shows the solar-panel-to-be just as it emerged from the conservatory and before it was hoisted to its final resting place higher up the wall.

I am pleased to announce that so far the wall has not fallen off.

There wasn’t any shepherd’s pie left.

I will keep you posted.