I have been flapping.
I have been trying to organise the last of my bit of the funeral organising.
Considering that I have not really finished organising the first of my bit of the funeral organising yet, it has been a day of some considerable panicking, and I got so worried about it all that in the end I got very cross with the children.
They had been doing their own things all day with never a thought for my woes.
This is reasonable enough, obviously, but it did not feel like it at the time.
I had worried myself into a complete tizz.
I remembered to strip the sheets from the bed for Clean Sheets Day, then put them into the washing machine and forgot all about them.
I remembered when I got back from my dog walk and discovered that not only were the sheets not ready to peg on the washing line, they were every bit as crumpled and sweaty as when I had dumped them there.
I hastily set the washing machine off and then forgot all about them. It was four o’clock when I remembered, with a howl of horror, and dashed around pegging them on the line, far too late to dry, and I had to bring them in again and light the fire, in a frantic dash just before six when I was getting ready for work.
Everything else had got to be washed as well, because we are going away this week and we need to have clean clothes. The house is now filled with dangling washing, steaming grimly.
It had been a very late start to the day anyway, because of the very late bank holiday finish to work last night, and I was not encouraged, on waking, to discover that Oliver, who I think must be growing again, had eaten an enormous breakfast and dumped all of his pots in the sink in his own frantic dash to get out to work. He is doing eating at the moment, it is very difficult to keep on top of.
I went to Booths for all of the ethical things we had run out of, and when I came back I became immersed in wiping up sticky smears on the work surface. I looked down and realised that the shopping was not at my feet, waiting to be put away, and went back to the taxi to bring it in.
It wasn’t there either.
I had a desperate five minutes hunting frantically for it before I remembered that I had put it all away already.
In the end I managed to get to my Job of the Day, which was to print out the Order of Service leaflets.
I changed the ink in the printer and got ink everywhere.
I could not get it to work then, and realised that in my flapping I had pulled the lead out of the back.
I tried to download the files from my computer and it ignored me, in that lofty way that computers do when you are yelling madly at them instead of asking nicely.
I asked Oliver to bring down the memory stick with the pictures on it and he told me that he had given it to me already. I could not find it anywhere. I do not know what I have done with it. In the end we had to get another memory stick and Oliver had to download them all over again.
In the end the children, who know how to work computers, took over the downloading and printing. Oliver watered the conservatory and Lucy dusted my bedroom.
I made some dinner and went to work.
One of the other taxi drivers looked at me and asked if I was all right.
I don’t know, I said. He nodded.
Do you have your meter switched to Double Time? he asked.
I agreed that I had.
Well, you’re all right, then, he assured me.
He was right.
Happy Bank Holiday Monday.
