It is half past three in the morning, and I am about to go to bed.
We had four hours sleep last night and have been up since eight.
I am so tired I couldn’t remember how to spell Eight.
I can tell you now what we have been doing.
We have been renovating Lucy’s house whilst they were on holiday.
I could not mention it before in case she read this, but since she is currently in a taxi on her way back from the airport I think it extremely unlikely that she will suddenly decide to dip into these pages whilst on her way.
It is supposed to be a surprise.
I do not know if it will be a nice surprise.
We have been as busy as very, very busy people.
We have insulated a wall of the house and the roof of the shed. We have plastered and filled in holes. We have replaced light fittings and repainted all of the downstairs. We have mopped and cleaned and polished and built some shelves and fitted a carpet in the living room.
We have got a carpet to put in the kitchen as well but didn’t get round to that so it is still rolled up on the driveway outside, we will have to do it tomorrow.
It doesn’t sound like very much but it jolly well has been, I can tell you. We don’t know if they will be pleased and relieved, because the mess has been getting them down, or if they will just think we are interfering old gidgets, and at this very moment we don’t care. We are just very glad to stop.
An old lady stopped me in the road outside the house this afternoon to talk about the scandal of the chap who hit his girlfriend. Apparently he has gone back to Liverpool.
”’E had better,” the lady said, darkly, “because there’s them on this street ‘ull give ‘im a right battering if ‘e shows ‘is face ‘ere again, you watch. They’s all watching for ‘im now. They’ll ‘ave ‘I’m, you’ll see.”
I expressed wholehearted approval for this conclusion and thought perhaps I had better not mention it to Lucy, who represents a more formalised version of retaliation for villains. Indeed, one of the things shouted by the young man in question when he was yelling at his girlfriend the other morning was to instruct her not to go round to our front door, because she should know they’re bizzies in there, which amused us very much.
She came anyway.
We are currently supervising the house for her whilst she stays with her mother, and indeed, whilst waiting for Lucy this evening, surprised a couple of young men who stopped outside the front door. They disappeared at some speed once they realised we were watching them, leaving us with the satisfied recollection that we are truly in the thick of life’s excitements.
I am going to finish this early once again, because although there are lots of things I could tell you, my eyes are closing and I think I might not be thinking especially sensibly any more.
Normal service will resume in a day or two.
