I am on the taxi rank and feeling frustrated.
I do not want to be on the taxi rank. I would like to be at home, where I could be doing useful things. There are lots of taxis here and nobody seems to want to get in any of them, and there are so many Undone Tasks in my kitchen that I am practically hopping up and down in my seat whilst I think about them.
We are very busy indeed.
Mark has not been to work today. This was partly because he had got an appointment to see the doctor, but mostly because of helping me to make a new living room once the carpet arrived.
It has arrived.
It did not go quite the way we thought that it might. We were expecting it around lunchtime, but we had just hopped out of bed and started to get dressed when the telephone rang. It was the carpet fitter telling us that they had decided to come early instead, and to expect them in about fifteen minutes.
There was a bit of an anguished flap after that.
Mark was going to move the water meter before the carpet arrived. Not by very much, just a twist to the side so that it will fit comfortably into a cupboard, but there was always the danger that water would gush forth in an accidental torrent, and we thought this would be better without a brand new carpet underneath. He rushed outside to turn the water off and I dashed downstairs to sweep the floor.
I swept it and swept it and swept it, to make sure there were no sharp little stones, or blobs of cement left to poke holes in the underlay. Then I mopped it to be sure, and we had both just about finished when the doorbell rang, and it was a couple of school leavers carrying a carpet.
It was a great excitement.
We left them to it and buzzed off with the dogs. This was not because the carpet fitters were worried about bat flu and preferred to be socially distanced, but because the dogs had not been emptied, and were starting to become fidgety and upset with us.
I can tell you now that it is a sublime experience to have a job that needs doing in your house, and to go out and come home and find it is done. I do not think that there are many more joyful moments in a person’s life, and I can recommend it. It must be lovely to be the Queen and to come home from opening the Houses of Parliament to discover that she need not worry about the dusting or washing up her breakfast pots, not just once but every single day.
Obviously the Queen does not open the Houses of Parliament every single day. I mean when she has been doing other things as well, like christening ships or unveiling plaques. I read once that Prince Philip installed the central heating in Buckingham Palace, but I bet he never once had to rush outside to turn the water off because the carpet fitters had decided to turn up early.
They had not quite finished when we got back. We left them to tidy up after themselves, which was also pretty splendid, whilst we puffed up and down the stairs to the loft. We had got to haul downstairs all the bits of furniture that we had dumped there and which now needed to be replaced in our new living room.
I would have liked to ask the carpet fitters if they would mind doing that as well, since they were both in the first flush of youth and had finished earlier than they had thought they would, but thought I had better not.
In any case, by the time we had remembered what we had done with all the bits of clock the carpet fitters had buzzed off, leaving us with a huge empty carpeted space, ready to be filled up with clutter.
I have got lots of clutter. I emptied the dresser months and months ago now, and all of my nice china has been packed away in boxes ever since.
We dragged the dresser into its new place and carefully reassembled the clock. After that we had quite an adventure trying to squeeze the raspberry pink sofa around the corners to its final resting place. It is facing the spot on the wall where one day a television will hang and blast its glorious technicolour into our very living room.
Mark oiled all of the mechanisms and started the clock whilst I unpacked all my china.
After a while the clock was ticking again, and all of my favourite teacups were out on view. I love them very much and wish there was no such thing as dust.
We spent ages finding new places for everything, until in the end I had to dash out to work, leaving Mark screwing the plug sockets to the walls and falling over the dogs.
We have not finished yet. I am dying to get on with it.
It is going to be lovely.
