Departure

I am writing this in haste before we set off.

We are going to get Oliver.

It is hardly a week since he started school in September and now it is half term and we are on our way.

We were not going to go until after I had finished working this evening, but we are going to go now instead. Mark came to sit with me for a cup of tea on the taxi rank after he had finished work, and after several cups of tea and an exchange of all of our news I still had not had any customers, and so we decided that it would be a better idea to go to Scotland instead.

Anyway you never know when Scotland might just unexpectedly close. The world is a bit unpredictable like that at the moment. I would not like to be turned back at the borders as if I had arrived with a group of fifty Somalis in a rubber dinghy.

Anyway it is always better not to be exhausted and cross when I get to places. I like my life much better when my eyes are not gritty.

Hence I have spent much of today cleaning up and packing and preparing. There was still a very lot of mess left over from the carpet adventure, and I spent quite a lot time trotting up and down the stairs with furniture that is destined to be temporarily stored in the loft for the next fifteen years or so.

I did this part of the day first, because it was the worst and I wanted to get it over and done with. There is nothing nastier than a horrid tiresome job looming up in front of you that you are trying not to think about. I did six trips carrying furniture up the three flights of stairs to the loft before eleven o’ clock, and then, once my hammering heart had subsided, knew myself to be virtuous and slim and healthy, and with nothing horrible left to happen in my day. I celebrated with a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast.

I have read somewhere that increasing your heart rate until it pounds hard at least once a day makes the blood pulse through your brain and flushes out the toxins that send you mental. This stops you from getting both dementia and depression.

I am pleased to tell you that I am safe for another day, and probably until about next Tuesday, because when I had finished I had to sit on the bottom stair for a little while until I had restored my tranquillity.

After that I tidied everywhere up and cooked some things.

Actually what I did was shoved a tray of beef burgers and sausages in the oven.

I can feed them to Oliver on the journey back down.

We are also bringing Elspeth’s daughter Caitlin back with us, so I hope she likes sausages.

I made fudge to encourage us on our weary way, and after a little while the lodger turned up at the back door. She had come to admire the beautiful birthday present living room and to encourage me to shirk and drink coffee.

I have not seen her for absolutely ages and ages, and so I accepted with enthusiasm.

We pulled two little raspberry-pink armchairs up in front of the fire and exchanged stories of our adventures whilst the world has been grinding to a halt with bat flu.

By the time I remembered that I was supposed to be going to work of course I was late, and an undignified flap followed, during which I kept forgetting what I was doing and wandering around making vague hand-wagging gestures, as if that would help me remember.

In the end, as you know, work turned out to be a bit of a damp squib in any case.

Mark has finished in the shower. We are going to set off at any minute.

I am going to get my coat.

Have another picture of the living room.

Goodbye.