It is Sunday.
I have kept a careful eye on this detail all day, so that I didn’t accidentally go to the post office or anything, because in every other respect it is very much the same as the rest of the week.
Mark has gone to work. I have faffed about doing things in the house, and now I am at work as well.
We were a bit late this morning because Mark put the last bits of floor under the fridge whilst I was making his sandwiches. They aren’t quite the last bits. There was almost exactly enough, but there is a tiny bit left over that we think we could make into some cork table mats, the sort that you put underneath your drinks when you can’t be bothered with a tablecloth. I usually have a tablecloth, because I like them, but there might come a day when both of them are in the wash and we would like to drink a cup of tea.
Waste not, want not.
He has also put a curtain rail across the window that opens between the kitchen and the conservatory. The conservatory is cold at nights now, mostly because we haven’t got all the glass in it yet. Hence we thought we could stop the draught with curtains for a while. It seems that the glass manufacturer is suffering from Brave New World Syndrome and not producing anything much, and we have got to wait for a window until he gets his act together. We still had the curtains that used to be up there before we had a conservatory, so I hauled them down out of the loft and hung them up.
This was not nice. They are absolutely enormous, and when I put them away I had obviously decided that washing them was just too much trouble. Hence they were horrible, and smelled of dogs and black mould.
I do not remember this moment of sloth but obviously I did it. Usually I am quite keen to leave generous presents for my Future Self, but I must have been feeling fed up with me or something.
I should have washed them before I hung them up today, but I didn’t. I thought that the draft from the missing windows in the conservatory would probably cancel out any dog-related pong on the curtains. Anyway each one is a full washing machine by itself, and the washing line was full of sheets, so it was still too much trouble, and I just hung them up anyway.
I thought that they looked very nice and will look even nicer when I get round to washing them, so now I have something to look forward to.
I put all of the clutter back on the top of the fridge, which was also something nice.
I should have dusted it first but I didn’t.
I am a rubbish housewife.
However it is splendid not to have piles of dog food and other junk all over the work top. I emptied the tajine and put the chicken on Mark’s sandwiches. I gave the burnt bits to the dogs, and Roger Poopy’s father was sick in the yard afterwards. I hope it was not because of the burnt dinner. It would not be good if it had that effect on Mark.
It probably won’t have that effect on me because I really don’t eat very much meat any more. This is not because I have suddenly metamorphosised into the sort of virtuous principled person who might read the Guardian and knit their own sandals out of goat cheese, but because it gives me indigestion. Hence I only eat it in small quantities or just as a nice thing, when I go out. On these latter occasions the subsequent hangover is usually so ghastly that any trace of indigestion fades into insignificance.
It is now late in the evening, and Mark has joined me on the taxi rank. We are trying to earn enough money to go and collect Oliver next week, when it is his half term.
It looks as though this endeavour is going to be quite fruitful. Lots of people are out having a last intoxicated fling before the north is grounded, like the naughty sociable children that we have been, tomorrow.
Well we know now. Since we haven’t learned yet not to talk to strangers, we are going to have to spend the next month staying at home.
I suppose it will give me some time to get the curtains washed.
