Oliver has been sent home from work after only a couple of hours.
This is because their pub and restaurant has only had seven customers all day.
I do not think that is likely to have paid all the staff wages, even if every single customer had a starter and a pudding as well.
I am not doing very much on the taxi rank either. That is not true, because of course I am writing to you, and there is always my book, which, by the way, is splendid. It is a book for my course, sent to me by the Number Two Daughters for Christmas, and which I am reading now because I have not got very long to read lots of books before term starts again in January.
I have not been doing university work for a while now. I have been very busy clearing up the debris from our Manchester trip, trying to get everywhere tidy before Christmas, and organising everything for going to London.
I am starting to worry a bit about London. You are not allowed in to the theatre unless you have got a test result saying that you don’t have bat flu. I am not worried about the result, the problem is that it isn’t possible to get testing kits anywhere.
Well, I am saying that, actually I have only tried the local chemist and a helpful lady at NHS England.
I did not bother trying anywhere else, because both of them told me that there were no tests to be had anywhere in the whole country, and none due to arrive from anywhere either.
I am cross with Boris. It is not fair to say that people are only allowed to go to the theatre if they have got a test, and then hide all of the tests. I had waited half an hour to talk to the lady at NHS England, and did not fancy telephoning again next week, which was all she could suggest. I can do without occupying another tedious half an hour listening to their very dull automated messages, interspersed with muzak, only to be told that it is no good getting testy about it.
She did not say that, I just thought it would have been funnier if she had.
In any case next week might be too late, because you have got to wait days and days for them to be delivered.
You can’t just go and get a test from the chemist. The chemist told me that you had to get a code from NHS England if you wanted one, although it didn’t matter that I didn’t have the code, because they didn’t have any tests anyway.
The lady at NHS England said that it was rubbish about the code, and that I was to jolly well tell the pharmacist to hand over a test, with or without a code.
She gave me a code anyway, in case he started cutting up rough, but I am not optimistic. The assistant at the chemist’s shop told me that they should have had tests delivered days ago, but they keep not coming.
You cannot get into some theatres, no matter how many vaccines you have had, if you do not have a test result.
We are going to find that very difficult, but you can’t get your money back just because you haven’t got a test result.
I will just have to keep trying.
Apart from flapping about tests I am pleased to announce that I have now finished all of the ironing.
Every single clothe that we brought back from Manchester is now cologne-scented and thoroughly flat, ready for the trip to London that might or might not happen.
I have hung them all in Lucy’s bedroom, it being the only available space at the moment, and will pack them next weekend…maybe.
In other news, I have scrubbed the filthy kitchen floor and washed the disgusting dog blanket. I have watered the conservatory and hoovered the stairs. I have dusted the living room and been to Booths for some ethical Christmas fare.
We are going to have ethical cheese from a dairy where Mark and Ted installed broadband, and ethical prawns that were not subjected to the hideous cruelties of Thai prawn farms, ethical melons that I assume must be ethical in some other way, and ethical walnuts. Well, the dogs are having the ethical walnuts. I am merely going to be picking bits of their shells out of my socks.
It is going to be lovely.
