I am in the taxi.
It is still very quiet. It is even quieter than usual, because half of the pubs are closed. I have heard various reports of the reason for this, ranging from a gas explosion to an electricity cut-off. The first seems unlikely because I think I would have noticed, and also all of the pubs are actually still there.
Hence I think the electrical failure is the most likely explanation, probably because of some kind of fault rather than simply because the landlords have neglected to insert sufficient fifty pence pieces into the meter. Certainly all of that side of the village is cold and dark. It is certainly not improving the jolly carnival atmosphere of the village, and I am expecting the first strains of impending-zombie orchestral accompaniment to strike up at any moment.
It is so quiet that I have happily occupied almost half an hour reading a page on Facebook called Illiterate Britain, highlighting other people’s misfortunate spelling and inappropriate use of apostrophes. I knew it was unkind to laugh, but I did. In fact, even despite an uncomfortably guilty feeling about the cruelty of ridicule, I laughed almost until I cried.
One of my favourites was a chap going on about a problem called Imagration, and remarking that people had Blair fever in there vains. He added, with rather surprising insight: They think were all stupid.
Alas, so true.
I am on the taxi rank by myself because Mark and Lucy are doing things in the loft. They probably won’t be doing many more things because Mark has almost run out of screws until the ironmonger opens tomorrow, but it is progressing. Lucy is putting the first undercoat of paint over the plastered corners, and Mark is cutting boards for the roof.
I have not done anything in the loft, other than occasionally potter up the stairs and admire the results. I have been cleaning the conservatory. I have trimmed out all of the end-of-season things, and one or two other things that weren’t end of season but with which I had become bored. The fig tree was subjected to some particular savagery after I poked myself in the eye with a stray branch.
I washed the windows, although not all of them because I ran out of height and interest, and swept and mopped. I noted that since the recent shopping trip when we stocked up on twenty quid’s worth of cat litter, the cats have not used the litter tray at all. I do not know where their current lavatory is situated, but it is not in the litter tray in the corner.
I discovered, to my enormous happiness, some stout hyacinth shoots beginning to poke through the soil, they will not be in flower by Christmas but they will enliven my New Year, as long as I can make sure the slugs don’t get to them. We have still got some slug pellets, despite Boris’s determined interdiction, so I shall jolly well use them, and all the hedgehogs in the conservatory had just better watch out.
There is nothing quite like hyacinths to cheer the soul.
It does not use up very many words to tell you about the cleaning up operation, but actually it took ages. This was because I have been neglectful, and the walls and window frames had begun to look very blackly doleful indeed. I sloshed water and bleach all over the place, mostly down my sleeves and all over my trousers, and when I had finished I was quite pleased with the result, probably I won’t bother again until next Christmas.
I have been contemplating the purchase of some fairy lights to cheer it up, they will look nice with all of the fairy lights that are in there already, but Mark’s credit card is already reeling from my last extravagances, and so I thought that probably I had better not. We are very broke this week.
I wonder if the children would like some new duvet covers for Christmas.
