Deadly line

It is the very last day before we go north for Oliver, and the whole day seems to have been happening at a run.

In fact it started with a bang, when I switched on the landing light and the bulb exploded, making me squeak in surprise, and showering everywhere with broken glass.

Mark fixed it, but it was a handy adrenalin injection to get me moving.

I have been cleaning and Mark has spent the day making another mess in the loft. It is plastered now, and he has been filling the wall with bookshelves. This is because the books have accidentally expanded everywhere and are spilling out in enormous piles all over the floor. I have filled all of the bookshelves downstairs, and I mean completely filled them, with books piled on top of books. I have been hoping that somehow Father Christmas might be able to oblige with some more, and now he can. The crisis has been averted.

Mark says that we do not really have a book problem, and that our next door neighbour has a worse one. This made me feel both relieved and mildly envious.

It is beginning to look as though it might at last be a real house, maybe even by the end of tomorrow. We have rushed and rushed and rushed, because it is the deadly deadline, and I do not want to leave a mess. By the time we settle into the camper van, laden with jelly babies for the long haul north, I want everything to be finished.

We are not going to be setting off until midnight at this rate. We have still got lots of things to do first. Christmas is thundering towards us like a Spanish bull which has just spotted a teenage boy showing off in front of his mates.

You will be pleased to hear that I finished the Christmas cards after all. Mark fixed the printer by spraying brake cleaner on its ink sensors, which gave it such a nasty scare that it decided to abandon its recalcitrant refusal to co-operate with the seasonal activities, like the three ghosts and Ebeneezer Scrooge.

This was a massive relief. I have made a complete mess of my hands by getting printer ink in all of the bleach-scrubbing splits on my fingers, and I am frantically hoping that I have not accidentally tattooed myself. Still, by the end of the day I had printed out not only our Christmas cards but also the last of the myriad forms for the council.

I have got to go to the council tomorrow. We have managed to pass all of the various tests they set for aspirational taxis and their drivers, and now we have got to take in the paperwork and part with our life savings. This last does not amount to very much, I hope it will be all right. Every now and again the council surprises you with some extra new charges that you weren’t expecting, in which case I will have to write them a cheque.

I can worry about that after Christmas.

I am pleased to have achieved the Christmas cards. I haven’t quite achieved them because I ran out of envelopes just as I was getting to the very end, but I can get those from the post office tomorrow. I am almost there, they are printed and glittered and written, and not only the cards, but also absolutely everything in my office is now covered in glitter.

Clearing up took ages, because the carpet was covered in walnut shells as well. To my enormous relief the dogs have now finished the walnuts. They are not getting any more this year. Rosie has completely ignored the Strict Rule that they are not allowed to bring them upstairs, and this morning I stood on one with bare feet during a visit to the bathroom. There is a limit to my Christmas Spirit.

It has got late, and I think I would like to read my book. I occupied most of the early part of the evening sewing patches on the elbows of Mark’s tweed jacket. He has worn through the one which rests on the driver’s window-ledge. I do not mind sewing, but it is challenging in a dark taxi, and the patches are now adorned with small bloodstain-speckles where I was inaccurate with the needle.

I am going to go and be entertained for a while.