Untimely

Mark came home early from work, which threw me into a complete flap.

Since we have not been allowed to go outside and live happy and fulfilled lives or earn any money, my day has slowly slid into a little treadmill of routine.

This does not mean that I do not like it, indeed, you will be glad to hear that I have managed to find some level of contentedness therein.

As prisoners can find excitement betting on flies crawling down a window, I have learned to find satisfaction and fulfilment in my small domestic existence.

This does not mean that I am not furiously angry with the Government and all who sail in her. Jonathan Sumption and his magnificent Wolfie Smith campaign for freedom, has become my new hero. He is living proof that not all Old Etonians are rotters, even despite Boris.

Talking of evidence, there are no new courtly updates today, by the way. That is to say, the mills are still grinding along like Jarndyce v. Jarndyce. It is not at all like on the television where key witnesses are dramatically unearthed at the very last minute from a dark underworld of drugs and misery in order to give crucially important evidence that changes everything and the judge becomes grim faced and shouts at the wrong side for defending the indefensible whilst everybody else sighs with relief and goes on to live happily ever after.

I think that I can safely say that such thrilling proceedings are nonsense invented by the BBC, who would have thought it?

In real life it would take the last minute witness so long to get through the scanners and compulsory disinfectant and handbag searching that long before they arrived, the accused would have been taken down the scary steps, the key thrown away, and the judge buzzed off to his chambers to readjust his wig and empty half a decanter of port into a crystal glass for dinner, probably with a napkin tucked into his collar.

Anyway I digress.

As I was not saying, but should have been if I had been sticking to the point, Mark’s untimely arrival threw all of my safely predictable routine into disarray.

I like my routine. I do the same things in the same order every morning. After that I have an unpredictable and exciting bit in the middle where anything might happen. Today it was going to Asda, but some days it is hoovering or cleaning the bathrooms, come days it is splitting up firewood, and some days it is hovering about a bit pointlessly not concentrating properly and then feeling guilty. I do not like those days.

After the exciting bit in the middle I reassure myself with a peaceable evening routine to end the day. I sweep the kitchen and tidy the house, making sure that all the curtains are closed and the cushions sitting neatly on their points on the sofa. Then I get dinner ready, and at six o’ clock, when Mark calls to tell me that he has finished work and is coming home, I sit down in front of the computer to write to you.

Today Mark came in before I had even finished the bit in the middle.

He wanted an untimely cup of tea, right there, in the middle of the day, just like that, it was not breakfast time or anything. Then he said that it was raining too much to do anything outside, and so he would help me do things in the kitchen.

Readers, I was thrown into a complete flap.

He wanted to do everything entirely the wrong way.

He did not want to wash up at all. He said that this was why we had bought a dishwasher, although actually we did not really buy it but acquired it when the Marina Village were knocking their flooded kitchens down. He ignored my squeaked protests that it would have no space left if he put the sausage tray in it, and said that we would live dangerously.

He filled all of the flour containers from the flour sack, which was handy, although his wiping up was a bit cursory and I had to ask him to do it again, but then he suggested that perhaps we could have dinner at the wrong time.

Some things are just too much.

I have dispatched him off to the shed, where he can start clearing a space for his nuclear reactor.

I have come upstairs to write to you and to restore my Inner Tranquillity.

It is now time to do dinner.

He can come in from the shed now.