I have had such an action-packed day that this evening I have consoled myself with a piece of chocolate.
I have done worse than that, I am afraid. I have had a kebab for my dinner.
Somebody left it in the taxi a couple of nights ago. I hasten to add that it was untouched, obviously, I am not so far sunk as to eat a kebab which had been partly-scoffed by some drunk. It was wrapped up in tinfoil and a couple of layers of paper, fresh from the Charcoal Grill, and was in a carrier bag under the front seat.
I do not approve of reckless waste, so tonight I shoved it in the microwave and brought it to work for my dinner. It was so heavily spiced that it was impossible to tell what it tasted like, so I do not know if it had gone off or not. I will find out if I get dreadful indigestion later on.
This will not help me to become thinner, especially alongside the chocolate, which turned into three pieces during the last paragraph, but I do not care. I have been busy.
I do not remember if I told you that I have been having firewood issues. Obviously now that the boot of my car does not open I can’t go to the farm to collect any more firewood from there, but fortunately the builders left a massive stack of it in the alley, which I hauled in at three in the morning after work the other night so that it wouldn’t be there for the traffic wardens to grumble about in the morning.
Unfortunately I couldn’t cut it up because our terrifying saw had broken. Mark told me to order another, so I did, and it arrived yesterday evening.
Today was my day for sawing up firewood with the new saw.
This turned out not to be at all simple.
I hauled the old saw out and would have taken it to the tip, except Mark said that he wants to keep it and mend it. He told me to put it in the shed, which I couldn’t because of the massive stack of firewood in front of it, so I dumped it on the bench whilst I tried to clear the space for the new one.
I had managed, with some huffing and puffing, and quite a bit of swearing, to drag the new one downstairs. It was in an enormous box and was very heavy.
When I opened the box it turned out that I had not bought a new saw at all, but a Build Your Own Saw kit. Incidentally, for the technically minded, I have found out from the box that it is called a Mitre Saw, I did not know that. It is identical to the last one, I know that because I just went to Your Previous Orders on Amazon, and clicked Buy It Again, so I have been using a Mitre Saw for years and not known.
It all had to be pieced together. There were some instructions which did not have words, just an incomprehensible series of diagrams, and one of those black-and-white squares at which one is supposed to point one’s telephone. I tried this, and my telephone immediately began to play some very loud and anxiety-generating music and flashed orange lights on and off, so I switched it off again.
I had generated plenty of my own anxiety without the telephone helping.
I followed the instructions as well as I could, although I know for certain that I have got one major bit on upside down. It won’t come off again so it is going to have to stay upside down in perpetuity or until Mark comes home and has his sense of propriety offended and changes it. Also there were loads of bits left over when I had finished, but they just seemed to be fairly unimportant safety gadgets, so I thought probably they wouldn’t matter.
I tried it in the kitchen, which was terrifying, not least because I had messed it up and there were some sparks, but I fixed it and then it was all right, except for some reason a saw spinning in the kitchen is utterly petrifying, so I switched it off very quickly, and humped it outside.
Curiously, once it was outside and on the saw bench, I wasn’t frightened of it any more. This was a most peculiar sensation, like being terrified whilst waiting in the wings but perfectly fine the moment the curtain goes up.
It was just like the old one, except much, much quieter, and so sharp that it just slid unhesitatingly through the firewood, which was magnificent, so instead of quaking in terror after a few minutes I was just lost in admiration. It has a little light that shows you exactly where the blade is going to cut so all the bother of lining the wood up is taken away, and also you know where not to put your fingers.
There is only one safety instruction for electric saws, beside which everything else fades into unimportant insignificance. It is Keep Your Fingers Out Of The Way.
I stayed there until it was too dark to see what I was doing any more, at which point I felt it might be prudent to desist, for obvious finger-related reasons. I had sawed up an enormous pile of firewood, refilling the stack and clearing the path so that I could get in and out of the shed again. I will be warm until Mark comes home.
I felt very contentedly pleased with myself.
I lugged the old saw into the shed and sighed with relief.
It was too late by then to get any dinner ready.
As wonderful good luck would have it there was a kebab.
