Dressing

Well, the rush is over, and once again the taxi rank is a peaceful place to be.

Every single tourist seems to have buzzed off back to Liverpool or Wigan or Durham, and the world is remarkably, gloriously quiet. I can hear a blackbird singing. It is splendid.

I am feeling some mild regret at their absence, because it is Double Time. I am resigned to not earning very much, even though I am the only taxi driver here. Every other taxi driver has buzzed off to spend their Easter bonus cash, one of them to Tenerife. I do not think I would like to be in Tenerife, but since I am here it would be pleasing to earn something.

My walk this morning was also undisturbed, although I thought that probably this was largely because it was raining. I saw nobody at all, except my recent acquaintance the deer again, and the morning was fresh and green and smelling of damp earth and blossom. I was sorry that yesterday’s hordes had missed it.

Somehow it has been hard to remember that it is actually Monday. It felt mildly peculiar to be stripping off the sheets this morning, as though Saturday had happened twice and so today it was still only Sunday. Obviously I washed the sheets anyway, although with a sense of injury at the Weather Gods, because of the rain, which meant that the sheets had to dry in the house, and they have been dangling over the stove all day. They will smell of woodsmoke by bedtime.

I quite like the smell of woodsmoke so this will be all right.

Whilst they were drying I was busy. I have been contemplating our house for some time, and have decided that if I am to feel radiantly contented to be in it then really it needs a bit more cleaning than I have been bestowing upon it. Winter has gone on for quite some time, and my domestic tranquillity has become tainted by an un-ignorable layer of thick stove-dust. This is worst in the kitchen, although it is also the worst in the living room. It is worst in our bedroom as well, actually, especially behind the bedding box where the wall has become black and fluffy. Even my office is looking a bit grimy and fingerprinty.

I do not know about the children’s rooms. I am sure Oliver knows how the hoover works if it begins to trouble him.

I have resolved to do something about it before Mark comes home.

He is going to be away for at least another week, and so I have got a bit of time.

I am going to do a thorough spring-clean.

I determined not to procrastinate about this. Actually I determined not to procrastinate any longer, because secretly I have known for quite some time that matters have reached a stickily unpleasant state of gritty horribleness, and if I am honest I have been procrastinating for some time already.

Today was the Day Of Commencement.

I started with the dresser. This is one of my favourite things. When it is polished it is beautiful and shining, filling my world with a contented glow. When it is buried under a layer of greasy grey dust it is not nice.

The Christmas cake was still sitting on it. It is that long since I have given the dresser even the most cursory of wipes, and longer than that since I have cleaned it.

The cake looked all right. I poured some more brandy over it and put it in the fridge. It will come in useful in a desperate pudding moment, probably with honey yoghurt and cream. I would have liked to have eaten some of it, but I am still fatter than I ought to be and so it will have to wait until my bottom gets a bit smaller. This seems to be taking a terribly long time, even though I have hardly eaten any chocolate at all, apart from sometimes when I am having a night off, or when the idea of chocolate seems more appealing than the idea of being thin one day. This happens more often than it ought to.

After a while I started to feel quite excited about it. It is splendid to feel that the out-of-control bits of my world, the parts that have become grubby and smeary and ignored over the dark months of winter, are going to be emptied out and scrubbed until they are fresh again.

I spent the afternoon carefully washing all of the pretty china and our best glasses and the teapots, until everything seemed to be gleaming softly in the grey afternoon.

I did not manage to get to the bottom bit of the dresser, which is where we keep alcohol, but reflected happily that it will be much easier to clean now that Christmas is over. I will do that tomorrow.

The top half of the dresser looks lovely now, and I am feeling pleased with my world.

More than that, a perverse part of my soul is looking forward to tomorrow, when I will be able to get on with the rest of it. The house is beginning to shine again.

I have dug out some beeswax polish for tomorrow.

I am feeling quite excited about using it.