I have had a Day of Difficulty.
It has been so crammed with difficultness that I hardly know where to start.
To begin at the beginning, I went to bed late because of the Halloween celebrations. I was not celebrating, I hasten to add, merely escorting home those who had celebrated a little too much. Anyway, I was late, and I would have liked to stay in bed this morning, but then didn’t.
I didn’t because I had woken up anyway, and because I was having Worries about the day ahead.
Obviously I wanted to know whether Mark would be coming home or dashing off to Norway, and so I staggered out of bed to check the computer for an update, and there wasn’t one.
It was too early. I collected laundry and then realised to my horror that I had completely forgotten to iron Oliver’s uniform.
During the term he irons it himself, but he had brought it home to wash, and I had said I would do it for him.
I belted up to the attic where I flattened it all, hastily, whilst Oliver mended a hole in his bobble hat. He is becoming very good at sewing.
Halfway through Mark rang. He needed me to apply for his work permit number and then send it to the company. Also he needed a copy of his passport, verified by a notary.
I belted back down the stairs again, and spent a couple of hours scowling at the computer, trying to understand several emails and online forms, all of which had been written in Norwegian.
Fortunately there is such a thing as an online notary service, and you can get documents verified online for a small fee.
Actually it is rather a large fee.
I have got copies of all Mark’s documents stored on the computer so everything went swimmingly until they wanted him to take a video of himself. After that I had to stop the whole process and try and talk him through taking a video of himself at Lucy’s house.
This proved complicated, as did resending the copy of the passport, which seemed to involve an awful lot of pixels and the sort of complaint familiar to anybody who has ever tried to take a photograph to send with a passport application. First it was too blurry, then it was too small, then it had too many pixels. This went on for ages and I was just starting to despair when an email came through from the notary who had just verified the document without us even having sent the video.
I can’t tell you what a relief that was.
This achieved, I went belting downstairs to pack everything out of the fridge into Oliver’s luggage. I had bought things like sausages and burgers in readiness for Mark coming home, which he wasn’t, and so Oliver helpfully offered to eat them on his behalf.
We filled his car with neatly pressed shirts and lamb kebabs, and I waved him off on his long road back to Bath.
I remembered then that I had forgotten the laundry, and so I pegged it on the line, where it didn’t dry very much.
I rushed out to the chemist to buy soap and anti-allergy tablets for Mark’s luggage and started to sort that out. He had dumped it all in the attic, and it all needed re-packing and checking.
He has got his passport and his clean underwear, so probably he will be all right.
I started to feel guilty about the dogs then. We had missed our walk, and it was getting late, so we dashed over to the Library Gardens with a squeaky ball.
Ten minutes later there was no squeak and only fragments of ball. It had been hunted and killed until all that remained was a small rubber chunk, which we threw away on our way home. I hoofed the dogs into the yard and set about trying to fix my car. This has a headlight out. A new bulb changed nothing, and I was perplexed.
It was troubling, because I can’t drive a taxi that only has one headlight. If the police see me they will send me home.
Mark said that it was the plug underneath the headlight, and that I should take it out and clean it.
I tried until my fingers were bleeding, well, it was my thumb actually, but it wouldn’t come out.
I gave up. After that I cooked. Even though there is only me in the nest I still need to eat things. I was starving by then, although it was several hours too late to think about breakfast, so I made sushi and pancakes as well, and I don’t care if they do make me fat.
They will do for three days. I have not just stuffed myself with carbohydrates.
Jack came home then, and I beseeched him to pull the plug.
He said there was a clip holding it in, but he couldn’t get it out either, because it had rusted solidly, which was probably the problem with the light.
In the end Mark telephoned with a brilliant idea. Jack cut a wire and stuck one end in the battery and the other end in the light, and lo! It worked. He dug a Landrover light switch out of the depths of Mark’s shed and attached it in the middle of the wire and gaffer taped the whole lot to the fuse box cover.
I have attached a picture.
It means that if I want to switch the lights on or off I have got to get out to the car and open the bonnet and switch the switch, but I do not care.
I am on the road again.
It has been a Day.
The pancakes and sushi were ace, but I might have got fatter.
