Cheaper to be stressed

I am making an effort to have a stress-free life in order not to have a sore shoulder, a fat pink eye and a headache.

I have discovered that drugs are very useful for achieving this end.

Apart from that it is a jolly sight harder than you might think.

I am attempting to cultivate a mellow and untroubled approach to life, but it does not seem to be flowing naturally. Partly this is because when I am feeling relaxed and contented with the world I forget that I am not supposed to just do everything I feel like, and as a result I spent all of our money on nice ethical things in Booths this morning and am going to have to hope that I earn sufficient money to put fuel in the taxi before the flashing light comes on. I do not mind the flashing light, taxis always have flashing lights on the dashboard, but it makes an irritating dinging noise as well, and customers always imagine this is some kind of safety warning, and tell me about it, helpfully, in case I haven’t noticed.

Just for future reference, if ever you are in a taxi you do not need to tell the driver about the red flashing DANGER light, the irritating dinging noise, or the grinding noise that happens to the brakes whenever the driver slows down. They already know, and probably this is why the radio has been turned up to Loud.

I have also recklessly booked us a weekend off in October. Before failing to raise your eyebrows at this you should remember that weekends are our absolutely busiest time, we miss everybody’s wedding because it is always on a Saturday, and we always, always work.

You can justifiably raise your eyebrows if you wish, especially if we missed your wedding.

It is not too bad, because it is in October, not the middle of July, and I am quite sure I have already told you about it. It is the exciting ceremony that the university is holding to present us with the Diplomas we earned last year.

Did I mention that I am doing a Master’s’s’ degree course at Cambridge University? Well, I am, and last year I did a Diploma course, and this year we are going to get a certificate to tell us that we are really clever, only of course I knew that already.

This should not really cost anything apart from the shockingly idle shirk from work, but I thought I would like to stay in the hall, and so I have sent them an email asking if we can have a room.

I could have booked it online, I suppose, but if I had done that I would have had to pay for it straight away, and I haven’t got any money left because of Booths this morning, and the Autoparts bill, which is due tomorrow. It is very expensive being relaxed and untroubled about life, really it is much cheaper to be anxious.

Mark thought this was a brilliant idea. He is always pleased to blow money on nice things even though I have warned him that he is going to have an impecunious old age because the Government does not even offer places in workhouses any more.

Also he thought it would be nice because my friend from that course will be bringing her husband as well, and they can look after one another. Her husband is just in the earliest stages of shed-construction, and when I told Mark about this he was immediately interested, so they can talk about sheds whilst the rest of us lament about the difficulty of getting a literary agent suitably to appreciate our colossal genius.

I am going to start writing another novel. Probably not until I have finished the Christmas paintings, but I do not wish to let the grass grow under my flip-flops, and frankly, if my tutor can sell his book which starts with the chap rummaging about in his trousers, then mine should jolly well fly off the shelves.

There isn’t even a dragon in his.

The dog-eye cream has worked rather splendidly well, by the way, and my eye now fits back under my eyelid again.

Perhaps I ought to pop round and ask the vet about my sore shoulder as well.