My day did not start well.
I was awoken – actually awoken – by a smell so truly horrid that it roused me out of my slumber, and to Roger Poopy hiding under the desk in the office.
A trip downstairs very quickly revealed that he had had the most dreadful liquid accident all over the kitchen floor. I do not know what he has been eating, something both poisonous and disgusting by the look of it, and I was not pleased.
I booted both dogs out into the back yard and spent the next ten minutes carting bags of dog-accident out to the dustbin in my dressing gown, glaring balefully at the dogs and telling them that they were unloved and friendless every time I passed them.
It was revolting. I finished off by mopping with bleach and throwing all of the doors and windows open until the smell cleared, which seemed to take ages.
The dogs slunk in and quaked on their cushion, but had already forgotten by the time I was dressed, and capered around like idiots when I tugged my boots on for our walk.
When we came back I acted on an inspiration that I had had last night, and rewired my headlight.
I am sorry to say that I did not rewire it so that it went through the plug, as it used to do in its previous life, that was still too complicated and definitely well above my limited mechanical abilities, not least because I can’t get the plug out. It is thoroughly stuck.
What I did was to modify the existing bodge job and turn it into a further bodge job, but one with the old Landrover switch inside the car instead of taped to the top of the fuse box. This is a huge improvement and means that I can just idly flick the switch when I want to turn the lights on, and I do not have to leap out and open the bonnet. I managed to find a coil of wire on the shelf of Mark’s shed, and rewired it all so that it comes up out of the back of the bonnet and in through the driver’s door. The switch itself is taped just beside the steering wheel with lots of gaffer tape, which looks a bit troubling in the daylight, but fortunately, fortunately, we are in the blessed dark winter nights now, and nobody can see, so it doesn’t matter.
I will just have to hope that the council do not choose the next couple of weekends to come and do a spot check for dodgy taxis, because I think I might qualify.
All the same, it is splendid, and feels positively hedonistic, and I am very pleased to be able to add that the tyre full of squirty stuff has stayed inflated as well, so I am still on the road and still earning a living.
This is very useful because the Norwegian government taxes income at 35%.
Apart from that of course it was Clean Sheets Day, and I whisked around the very autumnal dog walk this morning as quickly as I could in order to get them hung up when I got back.
I could not hang them in the garden because I had already hung Oliver’s sheets out there, having washed them overnight. I did not expect them to dry, and they didn’t, but I needed the space in front of the fire to hang my own sheets so that they would be dry before I needed them again tonight. It is very depressing to slide between damp sheets at the end of a busy day, and I didn’t have anywhere else to put them.
I did the whole dust-and-hoover thing, which I am quite sure you don’t want to hear about, and shoved the sheets on the bed before I came to work, and hung Oliver’s sheets in front of the fire instead. They will be dry by morning, and I can put them back on his bed.
What an exciting life I do lead.
I had planned to get on with my painting. I have decided to leave my story alone until I have finished the pictures, but it is going to take a long time if I don’t get on with it, and I didn’t get any time at all today. I needed to fill my taxi picnic boxes, and so I made sushi and pancakes, which will keep me fed for the next few days. It is important to have good food in winter, otherwise you can become disheartened very quickly. It isn’t cold yet, but it is damp and dark and still, which is not the sort of climate which inspires one to enthusiasm.
I suppose it could be worse.
I should think it is even harder to be enthusiastic in Norway.
