Fingered

We did have cake for breakfast, after which we had it for lunch.

Mum if you are reading this it was very gratefully received and stood between us and starvation.

Not that we would actually have starved, I could, of course, live perfectly well for a couple of months on the fat I have been carefully storing on my bottom. I am nothing if not prudent.

I woke up before Lucy this morning, largely due to the noisy blackbirds also engaged in a DIY project in Lucy’s gutter. I know all of the reasons why this is a dreadful idea, but they are so industrious and enthusiastic that I can’t bring myself to suggest we do something about it, how dreadful it would be if somebody came along and pulled Lucy’s carefully-constructed house down after all of our efforts. I watched them flapping in and out with sticks for a while, accompanied by the cats, who were also very interested in their activities, and pretended I hadn’t noticed.

I can’t open my bedroom window at Lucy’s house. I opened it last week and one of the cats immediately climbed on the windowsill and fell out. Presumably it was an unpleasant experience, although there was no noticeable damage, and she was very disgruntled for quite some time afterwards.

She was disgruntled today as well. Lucy has washed the cover on the pillow in their cat basket. The replacement cover is not brushed cotton, and they do not like it at all. I have attached a photograph of a cat whose basket has become tiresomely unacceptable. Her basket was her favourite place yesterday, and now she is so upset that she canbut will not get in it under such upsetting circumstances.

Since I was awake I thought I would go and do some outside things. I did not want to wake Lucy, who is back on shift work tomorrow, and trying to bank as much sleep as she can before she starts.

It wasn’t raining, so I took the garden fork, helpfully donated by my parents yesterday, into the back garden to try and uproot some of the stinging nettles. These seem to have been the previous inhabitant’s favourite plant, they are everywhere, with creeping buttercup and dock leaves, mare’s tail and goose grass ornamentally dotted about in between them.

I do not share his gardening taste.

I dug out a few, until my hands had been stung to bits. I was sanguine about this, considering it an opportunity to test out the old wives’ tale about stinging nettles being good for arthritis, which is currently plaguing one of my thumb joints. I regret to say that it doesn’t seem to work, so don’t bother. Stick to Big Pharma.

Eventually I gave up, and cut up and stacked some firewood left over from Mark’s demolition activities by the back door. She does not have a fire so probably it will go in the next skip, unless one of us gets round to taking it home. I did not bother today because of not wishing to have to clean my taxi out before going to work. I have just cleaned it. Once a week is enough.

We had coffee and the first helping of cake after that, and decided that the best garden solution might be a couple of gallons of RoundUp.

After that we turned to the business of the day, which was tidying up the mess we had made in the room that will one day be the living room, and fitting the new bathroom carpet.

I had to try very hard with the carpet, because I am not much good at sizes and shapes and cutting things to fit, and I can tell you now that I had my tongue sticking out the entire time.

This actually came in handy for licking the blood off my fingers after several Stanley knife misfortunes. It is now a brown-and-red speckled carpet, and I will have to boil my handkerchief the next time I wash it.

We had to take the door off, because the carpet would not fit underneath, and we planed the bottom of it off. I was very pleased with this, it is the sort of thing that real builders do, and apart from making a massive mess and filling all of my clothes with wood shavings and sawdust, it worked brilliantly. We wiped the blood off it and screwed it back into the door frame and it opens and closes and even locks

The bathroom looks splendid. The carpet fits almost as well as if a real carpet-fitting person had put it there. It covers almost all of the floor, even the tricky bit around the loo.

I packed my bags with my sore fingers and came home.

I have got lots of plasters on now. I have picked the splinters out and put some cream on my nettle stings.

You can tell I have been busy.