I had a small disaster last night.
My headlight went out.
I am not very good at headlights. I can get the old bulb out and put the new one in, but then I have a one hundred percent track record of not being able to fit the wretched thing back together. It has a stupid wire clip which has got to be clipped, in a clippy, wiry sort of way, and which I have never been able to comprehend. I have never seen any need to comprehend it, actually, that is the point of being married. There are some things that girls just can’t do genetically, and fixing stupid wire clippy things together is definitely one of them. It is because of hormones.
Exactly this happened last night, encouraged by an interested taxi driver who had no more idea than I had, and who in any case was fully occupied leaning on the side of his car and nodding supportively and asking when Mark might be coming home.
In the end I just bundled it all back in and shoved the cap on.
This, of course, was functional but not exactly lined up. Actually the headlight was gazing at the stars, as if it was trying to work out which was Orion and which was just junk belonging to Elon Musk.
It worked well enough for me not to run over any encroaching deer, but not well enough for me to be entirely confident in its legality. Also I could feel the resentment of oncoming drivers as thoroughly as if they had leaned out of the window and voiced their opinions with supporting hand signals.
This could not be allowed to continue.
This evening I told Oliver about it before I went to work.
I’ll have a look, he said, undaunted by my explanations about the stupid wire clip.
Five minutes later he had clipped it all together and I had a functioning headlight. I knew it was a thing that blokes could do, and I have had the good fortune not only to be married to one, but also to be the parent of one, what splendid luck.
In other news, I have been cleaning again. I have cleaned and cleaned so much that the ends of my fingers have become hard and papery, with lots of little creases, as if I were approaching my ninetieth birthday, not my sixtieth.
Today I have been doing the kitchen.
I am not even halfway round it yet.
I started with the fridge. This was because I had been to Booths, and it seemed counter-productive to put everything away only to empty it all out again a couple of hours later.
It looked so much better when I had finished that even Oliver noticed. It looks like an advertisement for buying a new fridge, the sort that promises to make your children happy and smiling and delighted to be eating yoghurt and raw carrots instead of Haribos and Coca-Cola, after which they will be grateful and appreciative of your thoughtful parenting and their friends will be envious. That sort of fridge.
Also I had thrown away the carrots in the bottom that had begun to be liquid, and mopped the disgusting sausage-fat smears off the shelves.
After that I started on the shelves. This was a grim experience, involving a very lot of scrubbing with a mix of washing up liquid and bleach. I used half a bottle of washing up liquid, and I haven’t finished yet.
The painting chaps turned up when I was halfway through. I paid them yesterday, and then to my surprise they rang me for a taxi home from Windermere Social Club some hours later, where they had been celebrating this cash windfall ever since.
They did not make it back for half past eight this morning.
I was not surprised about this.
They did not stay very long. I think they might not have been feeling very well.
Still, I am feeling pleased with my day. I am going to have a very splendidly clean house when I have finished.
That magnificent day might still be some way off.
