We had to get up not long after we had gone to bed.
Oliver was off to the pub’s staff outing and Mark took him down to Bowness. They were having a day playing on the Crystal Maze in Manchester followed by a night of happy excess back here. They are still out even now.
We went back to bed as soon as he had gone, and dreadfully, failed to wake up again until two in the afternoon, which seriously curtailed our day. There is really not much spare time when you get up at two and go to work at six and have laundry and cooking to be done in between.
We might have been getting a bit short of sleep.
We ate the very last mince pie for breakfast.
We took the Christmas tree down yesterday, and Oliver and I occupied a happy hour or so sitting by the fire feeding bits in a little at a time, in order to create a cheerful blaze but avoid attracting the attention of the fire brigade. I do not like the fire brigade and in our current world of quite astonishing stupidity, people will sometimes call them if they see too much smoke coming out of a chimney. This is really irritating. One woman once knocked on the door and told me that smoke was coming out of the side of the chimney, as well as the top, which was bad for the environment. I could not think of a single sensible reply, and even now a couple of years later I still can’t.
Anyway we fed the poor Christmas tree in a bit at a time, which might or might not have been bad for the environment but which meant that the house was splendidly warm and we had lots of hot water, so we did not care. There is still some left, it burns amazingly hot so it will be handy for firelighting, it is always mildly troubling to burn it all in January and recall what a hideous fire hazard it actually is. If your Christmas tree catches fire your house is finished, it is a combination of oily sap and dry needles, and blazes like a Viking funeral pyre, the sort in films not the way they probably were really, when smouldering damp wood probably smoked tiresomely for ages on wet days whilst everybody hung about shivering and grumbled about getting smoke in their eyes.
I was not sorry to see the Christmas tree go. It has all been very lovely but it is nice to tidy up. The dogs had left quite a bit of chocolate still in it, which I put in the tuck drawer for emergency breakfasts or for picnics. Oliver refers to this as the Mummy Drawer these days because it contains headache tablets and chocolate, and on the whole only I ever go in it.
We also found the dogs’ ball, which has been missing for a couple of weeks, and which turned out to be in the Christmas tree, probably because Rosie throws it down the stairs for herself to run after when nobody will play with her. We washed the ornaments and laughed at the children’s old Christmas cards, and Oliver measured his enormous hands against their tiny handprints.
We removed the kitchen floor and cleared up underneath it, and I have started on the ironing. This had to be done in a bit of a rush this afternoon, because Oliver needed some respectable clothes for going to the pub this evening, and of course he is going back to school tomorrow.
Mark buzzed off to examine the latest camper van problems and found a leak which has made our bed damp, and some problem with the sidelights. We are setting off tomorrow. I love the camper van with my whole soul but it is infinitely crumbly, and I am mildly concerned about this trip because its MOT has run out and we have not yet managed to book another. This should not matter because it is too old to need an MOT but we are bracing ourselves to be stopped on the way to Scotland every couple of hours by enthusiastic policemen.
We are on the taxi rank now. There are no customers but Oliver’s pub party is still throbbing merrily away, and so in a little while there will be a clutch of intoxicated kitchen porters and barmen all needing to be ferried home. Everywhere else is closed or empty, and lots of places will not be open at all next week. The nightclub is closed now until February, the Chinese restaurant will only be open at weekends, and we are all sinking slowly into hibernation.
I like this. It is lovely to come out to work and spend the entire evening knitting and listening to stories.
We will make some money when the summer comes again.
