Goodness me, for a day of quiet housewifing it seems to have been remarkably busy.
The first news is that I think my taxi might be fixed. Mark plugged the diagnosing machine into it last night, and it said there was a fault on the fuel pump. He cleared the fault off and the car started. I have not bothered trying to start it again, so it might be fixed or it might not.
I will not be in the least sorry if it is not fixed, because I really do not want to go to work this evening. The terrible cold about which I have been complaining has not recovered, and I am leaking disgusting bodily fluids out of all of the orifices of my head, including my ears. This is a thoroughly revolting state of affairs, and I have been obliged to fill a bucket with bleach, which I have duly placed underneath the sink, in which to place my disgusting overfilled slimy handkerchiefs.
My grandmother said one should always do this, but I don’t. Mostly my handkerchiefs are just used for a quick polish or at worst some watery seepage on cold days, and so I have never seen the need to create excess labour for myself, but I am sorry to say that the Time Has Come.
I will not describe my handkerchiefs to you in case you are reading this over breakfast.
I am not enjoying the experience. I jolly well hope I get better soon.
In other news, I am not the only one with health-related difficulties. Number One Daughter has bashed her knee in the gym this afternoon and needed four stitches. This is particularly traumatic, because there are approaching competitions, and she has got to be in the peak of fitness, and is feeling Cast Down.
I tried to make encouraging noises, but couldn’t think of any. My half-baked suggestion of Well, maybe just do extra arm-exercises, was treated with the silence that in retrospect, it probably deserved. It is dreadful to be training hard for something and then for it all to be made ten times as difficult.
Lucy has broken her toe as well, but she is not trying to get fit for anything except running after criminals, all of whom are still thoroughly unfit after a couple of years of bat-flu, so that is probably all right.
I took the dogs out over the fell, snuffling viscously as I went, and I am pleased to report that my new jersey worked brilliantly, although it was not exactly easy to tell, because the sun was shining for the first time in days and days. It was shining so thoroughly that I hung the washing in the yard when I came home, and it had almost dried by the time I dragged it all indoors again. We are going to have to have a domestic conversation about the yard. There are a lot of bicycles and buckets in it. One bucket seems to be full of sand and half an exhaust. I do not know what this is about but I do know that I stubbed my toe on it.
I was supposed to clean the children’s bedrooms when I came home, and replace the clean sheets and towels, but I was suffering so badly from self-pity that I didn’t. Instead I sat in front of the computer with a roll of loo paper and began to write my Second Term assessment.
My course is almost over. We have got one last lecture this term, and then there is next term. I do not want it to be over, but have decided that there is no point in going on to study writing non-fiction and analysing fiction over the next couple of years. It is the Masters’s’ or nothing.
I have had a good time writing the assessment. I have not finished yet, it takes ages to do that sort of thing properly, because you have got to keep going back and checking if you have said everything in the absolute best way you possibly could. It is not like these pages, which just get bashed out and then dumped with a sigh of relief.
You can probably read it when it is done. It has got to be either about crime or fantasy, and I do not like writing about crime, because of getting scared in the Library Gardens, so it has got unicorns in it.
That will do the job nicely.
I have got to go to work now.
Ah well. Maybe the taxi won’t start.
