Absolutely fine

I am starting to write this just before Mark leaves.

He is not leaving yet because he is busily engaged in trying to repair the shower, which disintegrated last night halfway through our bed-time ablutions.

He is fixing it with a new one that he purchased from B&Q this morning, but which has turned out to be tiresomely recalcitrant, having all the interior bits inconveniently sited in the wrong places.

He is using the bits of the old shower to repair Oliver’s shower, which, also inconveniently, also disintegrated last night as he was getting ready for bed.

It is a good job Mark is still at home or we would be having an extremely grubby three weeks.

He did not commence the shower-repair project until very late in the day because of my taxi collapsing halfway through last night. It did not exactly collapse, but slowed to a worrisome crawl and flashed a big sign on the dashboard warning me in an alarming shade of red to STOP.

I jammed a taxi card in front of it in order not to disturb the customers, most of whom were too drunk to notice anyway, and discovered that a normal speed could be restored by turning the ignition off and on again, which time-honoured method of repair has saved all sorts of activities since the very first moon landings.

It was an astonishingly quiet night anyway. We did not even bother staying out for the night club.

Mark investigated this morning and discovered an oil leak, which has meant that the oil pressure has fallen, which was the cause of the problem.

He has not had time to fix the oil leak, nor the malfunctioning gearbox, and has merely refilled the oil and instructed me to keep topping it up. I am going to make sure I have a large supply of taxi cards and simply carry on to the best of my abilities until he gets back in three weeks.

I am sure it will be absolutely fine.

I have spent the day daubing paint on to the Advent calendars, which are not nearly as close to their final throes as I would like them to be, and I can foresee some days of frantic panic looming up ahead. I have got to post them on Friday, which is not very far away, and they are absolutely nowhere near painted.

Friday is ages away.

I am sure it will be absolutely fine.

It is now later, and Mark has gone. I would like to say that I will miss him, but actually I have got a horrible feeling that the next few weeks are going to be so dreadfully, manically busy, that I will barely have time to notice his absence, at least not unless the STOP sign in my taxi flashes on again, and even then there is always Oliver.

The problem, of course, is the imminent arrival of the festive season, which is thundering down upon me as if I were a pedestrian on the M6 at rush hour. I have got a very lot to concern me. It is not just the Advent calendars, but the Christmas cards, the Christmas chocolates, the Christmas tree, the Christmas shopping, the Christmas cake, the Christmas spring clean and the mince pies, all of which need to be accomplished before Mark’s return, along with a great deal of packing, because the day after he comes home we will be leaving for Manchester and the pantomime.

I have not yet even finished the ironing left over from our last trip to Manchester.

I will get to it.

I am sure it will be absolutely fine.

I called Number One Daughter this morning to find out if her family were planning to come to visit over Christmas. It turns out that they are, and that they thought they might stay with us or possibly with Ritalin Boy’s Other Grandma, depending on which of Number One Son-In-Law’s brothers would also be in residence.

We discussed the various issues of accommodating nine people in our Lakeland terraced cottage, and after about half an hour spent considering every possible alternative for mattress availability, we booked them into a guest house on the other side of the alley, which instantly solved the problem. Even if they decided to go to Ritalin Boy’s Other Grandma we will still have the room and given the seasonal possibility of somebody squabbling with somebody else we thought it might turn out to be very useful.

Number One Daughter does not want to go to the Indian restaurant for Christmas dinner, which means I might have to start thinking about cooking the Christmas dinner.

I have got no idea what we might eat for Christmas dinner, not least because I really don’t like turkey very much, and so am going to have to think of something else, something that isn’t Mango Butter Chicken With Pilau Rice, that is.

I do not know what I will do but am going to have to think about it, because if we are not going to have turkey, which we are not, then I am going to have to order something to cook.

Looking online it would appear that I have got about a week to do it.

I had better start thinking.

I am sure it will be absolutely fine.

Of course it will.