I am not on the taxi rank.
I am at home in my own office, and I am itching dreadfully. In fact it is entirely possible that I might not be able to bear it for very much longer, and will have to dive off and have a shower.
This is because I have spent the evening giving the dogs a haircut. They are now miserably and unseasonably bald.
This always results in thousands of tiny, prickly hairs, not to mention an unpleasant cloud of nasty-smelling dandruff, which leaves my skin feeling as though I have recently visited the dressing rooms at a particularly unkempt flea circus.
The dogs were not very pleased either, and are now lying mournfully on their cushion, pressed up hard against the radiator, and occasionally casting glares in my direction.
I think they are making a bit of a fuss. It is not exactly chilly in here. The fire is piled up with firewood, and I will be very pleased indeed to be removing all of my clothes in the very near future.
My underwear feels as though it was designed by a sadistic medieval bishop to encourage true penitence in the wicked.
Nevertheless it had to be done, even though it is only February. The birds have started their busy nesting activities, and the garden was filled with several large and beady-eyed crows this morning, all peering contemplatively at the lawn, looking for handy construction equipment. Also when I hoovered the other day there was so much dog hair in the hoover tank by the end that I was surprised that we have been able to see the carpet for the last week. In any case, they are going to go to Lucy’s house in a couple of days, where they will expect to be allowed to sleep in her bed, and Rosie has jumped into the very muddy tarn on every single walk for the last fortnight.
Also they smelled truly dreadful.
I was not sorry to spend my evening doing such a tediously mundane task, although it was more interesting than hoovering, not least because of the level of self-defence involved. It is not easy to give somebody a haircut when you have got one elbow jammed into their throat and one hand desperately trying to fend off some furiously thrashing paws.
I have had an excitingly traumatic day, and I needed a rest.
I have been for my job interview.
You will recall that today was the day for my most recent attempt to lever open the firmly-closed doors of the funeral industry. I visited last week for a preliminary chat, and today they kindly invited me back for a properly formal grilling, which I almost messed up completely by getting the chap’s name wrong when he opened the door. I knew perfectly well what his name was and had been rehearsing it to myself in the car all the way down, and then was in such a state of advanced nervous tizz when he appeared that I called him by the name of the company, which was helpfully written on the front of the building.
I suppose I was lucky that it wasn’t the Co-op and I didn’t address him as Mr. Right By You.
I reassured myself that things could only improve from that point, although I am not sure if they did. He was a very nice chap, and hardly seemed to notice that I was blathering nervously. He asked me all sorts of questions of the sort that go Tell Me About A Time When You… and of course my mind went completely blank apart from a collection of some of the ruder taxi anecdotes, all of which were swimming around my head because that is the sort of story that usually creates an amused and appreciative audience, but which were obviously completely unsuitable for this occasion.
I practically had to put my hands over my mouth to stop them from spilling out, and maybe some kindly God was watching, because none of them did. All the same I am not sure that the benchmark for a successful interview is that one has managed not to tell any rude stories, and so I was not exactly brimming over with confidence by the time I came out.
I was shaking so badly that I could hardly manage to walk out of the door at the end of it, and fortunately Mark was waiting for me outside in the taxi. He has had plenty of experience of me doing nerve-wracking things, and had offered to drive me there and back because of knowing perfectly well that I would be in an advanced state of horror at the end of half an hour of trying to behave so beautifully that somebody would think I was a desirable employee.
We had planned to go for a walk on the beach afterwards, but I was in such a state that Mark suggested we go straight home, and I agreed with some relief. He had spent the time on the telephone to work discussing next week’s team for the not-leaking-very-much-any-more oil rig, and was feeling cheery.
We went home and had a cup of tea, and he said that it was so quiet there was no need for us both to go to work, and so we didn’t. I have stayed at home and played at being Sweeney Todd with the dogs and watered the conservatory.
I am sorry. I can’t bear the revoltingness of my clothes for another minute.
I am going to go and peel them all off.
