I am not exactly sure that I truly remember what Normal might be, and so it is impossible to decide if we are truly getting back to it.
For so long now we seem to have been occupied with Christmas preparations, with loft-building and calendar-painting and bedroom rearrangement, I can’t remember what we were doing before all of that rushed in and demanded our undivided attention.
Things must be becoming fairly normal again. Rosie was sick on the landing this afternoon, and you can tell the world is returning to its usual balance because we all noticed. I was very cross with her because there is always the option of Outside for dogs who would like to be sick, but regrettably she chose not to take it, probably because it was raining.
I told her that she had no friends and that nobody liked her any more. She cried a bit and hid underneath the cushion, miserably. I am aware that this sounds unkind, but I felt I could justify some unkindness, because I had trodden in it. This is not nice in flip-flops. You can ring the RSPCA if you like.
Apart from that I changed the sheets even though it is not Monday. I should have changed them on Monday but it was Christmas Day and we had not slept in them as thoroughly as usual, because of being at the Midland, so I didn’t. The sheets were beginning to feel a bit limp and unappetising by today, so we took them off.
I do not like it when a routine goes all out of its right and proper pattern. I can foresee now that there is going to be a knock-on effect, and that next Monday I will have to change them two days before they really need it. I shall like this, because clean sheets are one of life’s splendid pleasures, but I will feel a little guilty as well, because really it is wasteful to change one’s sheets after just a couple of days.
If I won the Lottery I would have clean sheets every single day and pay some indifferent alcoholic or drug addict to sleep in dirty sheets so that I could offset my laundry footprint. I am quite sure they would not mind, indeed, I suspect some of my customers would happily do it for free, but it would probably be kindest to give them a tenner for it. I wonder if the King does this. He might do. I think it unlikely that Prince Philip would have had anything to do with poor people’s laundry arrangements, but Charles likes to get down there with the peasants.
I am going to wash Oliver’s sheets tomorrow. This will give him something else to think about whilst he is doing his driving test, he can have a quiet worry about whether or not they will be dry in time for bed in the evening.
I shall tell him about it as he is setting off, maybe it will distract him from worrying about Mirror Signal Manoeuvre and where one is supposed to go on a roundabout.
The test is just before lunch tomorrow, and he and Mark have been off out practising today. Really I will be a little bit sorry if he passes, it is very useful that they are both driving into Kendal every day. Today I gave them a coat to change that Lucy had for Christmas but which does not fit properly, and sent them to Asda for some salads. It is saving me so much messing about I can hardly tell you about it.
The driving test moment is all looking a little anxious at this moment. There is a trouble with a sensor that is not working properly and a light on the dashboard. Mark says that the body control unit has got wet and that it is having little electrical surges, but you are not supposed to surge unexpectedly when you are having a driving test, so we will just have to keep our fingers crossed.
I am crossing everything, but I am not holding my breath. In any case we have been out at work tonight and it has rained so much that half of the roads are flooded. If it carries on raining all night he is going to need a snorkel in the morning.
Poor Oliver. It is a very worrying moment.
I am glad I am grown up.
