I have arrived at my computer to discover that somebody, probably somebody who likes the feeling of the keypad under their paws, has been here before me. Worse, they have opened all sorts of peculiar and unfamiliar things. They appeared to have been trying to change the User Name on iTunes. It was written in the box as [[[[[[[lms§§§.
Fortunately you needed the existing user name in order to make the change stick, which appears to have been beyond their typing skills.
I know who did it. When I got back to the desk they were sitting on it, drinking the painting water. There is animal-water all over the house, including an astonishing and clever gadget that looks like a flower and delivers constant running cat-water, with all impurities thoughtfully removed by an ultra-violet filter. Lucy purchased this because of taking her pet-ownership responsibilities seriously. The dogs just have a bowl that says Princess on it, which Lucy bought when she was a small child and liked the idea of a Princess bowl. We only had male dogs at the time but fortunately they couldn’t read.
Anyway, none of these water sources are anywhere near as good as my painting water. If you get a painting from me this Christmas, do check it to see if you can detect faint traces of mixed-in cat dribble.
I have not been paying my computer very much attention because of having been busy with domestic events. This morning was the occasion of Oliver’s penultimate visit to the orthodontist. He will be having his brace removed on Monday, and today they wanted a last look at him to make sure that his teeth truly were in a straight line before they commit the Final Act.
It will not be over. He has got to wear a thing in his mouth at night for all of the rest of his life, or at least until he gets old enough not to care what he looks like. This is called a Retainer and I am not sure how you organise this around a young-person life of wild parties and spending nights unconscious under park benches or on uncomfortable plank-beds in the police station. I do not know what might happen if you were to be sent to prison, for example, so we will just have to hope that Oliver continues with his life of unexceptionable virtue and does not get sent to prison. I imagine that I am probably going to have to post it to Gordonstoun on more than one occasion as it is.
When we came back from the orthodontist Mark had disappeared to the scrap yard in Penrith to collect the bit to make Oliver’s car work again, and in no time at all they were out in it again. They drove around the lake and over the fells and through the traffic lights and along the bypass, and finished up at the farm, where they stacked firewood until it was time to come home.
I took Lucy to the hairdresser.
She has had all of her long hair cut off. It is very short, and a bit rascally, and utterly stunning.
She has cut all of her hair off because of a new job and a new house and a new determination not to have to unblock any more plugholes. I am also supportive of this last.
It looks amazingly good, suddenly grown-up and sophisticated. She was not quite sure at first, the whole thing being such a huge change, but by the time she had walked back to the car and felt the cool breeze on her neck and experienced the possession of ears for the first time, she was enchanted. I am sorry to say I don’t have a photograph, but I will try and remedy that over the next few days.
We did not go to work tonight. We were exhausted from a day of ceaseless activities. We stayed at home and watched a film en famille. I like doing this because we all shout at the screen and comment loudly and unforgivingly about the stupidity of the characters. Every police force in films seems to be run by a black woman, and then another woman, this one was black as well in tonight’s film, courageously ignores what she is being clearly told to do and braves entirely unnecessary peril in order to achieve some boneheaded but emotional objective. They are never fired for doing this. I was about to say that I do not know who is writing our films these days but actually that is not true. I know rather a lot of people who write films for a living, and frankly they ought to be ashamed of themselves. Mark says they are all so busy trying to fit in their Character Curve that they forget about coming up with a decent plot.
It was a splendid evening all the same.
I can hear Mark getting out of the shower.
I am going to sleep.
