Something horrid has happened.
Mark was offered an offshore job a few weeks ago, and accepted it.
We didn’t hear any more about it and assumed it was one of the very many jobs that sound really promising and then never happen, after which we forgot all about it. Then a couple of days ago he accepted another one, an actual job to set off next week, and misfortunately it turned out that the first one was real after all and they had just not been in touch.
They are not pleased.
Mark has apologised profusely but it was not a happy moment, and has making me feel guiltily uncomfortable all day.
It seemed like a very short day. We were late getting up. Partly this was because of working last night, but also it is because we really like the coffee-in-bed start to the day, and never feel in a great hurry for it to be over. I never drink coffee in bed when I am by myself, only when Mark is home, and it makes it feel like a holiday. We like it so much that we took our own coffee to Glyndebourne with us, and imported coffee-in-bed to our guest house there, even though there was perfectly good coffee available with our breakfast.
It is rendered a very sociable time by the presence of four dogs, who occupy a very great deal of the available bed space. It is also their favourite part of the day, and they are always very excited to be allowed to join us, albeit on the top of a large Dog Towel. The actual coffee consumption has to be delayed until their initial happiness has worn off, and they have all settled down and started snoring again.
In the end it was almost the middle of the day before we emerged, ejecting the reluctant dogs with some effort. I took them all off over the fells then, whilst Mark went off to dig his jigsaw out of the camper van, because he is making me a cutting out table to go with my sewing space in the attic.
This took him most of the day, but I thought it was worth it, because it is going to be a very useful thing indeed. It is really difficult to cut accurate measurements and right angles when your biggest flat space is an ironing board, and I have been becoming frustrated.
In the spirit of attic improvements, I went to the ironmonger’s to purchase a new cover for the ironing board. I was resigned to notice how exciting I thought this was, I am afraid my old age has turned me into a very dull sort of person.
In the end I could not choose a cover, because of the discovery that they came in different sizes, and I had never considered that it might be important to measure the ironing board.
I telephoned Mark, who by a handy stroke of fate was in the attic measuring the space for the new table. He measured the ironing board, and then hearing my wails of elderly despair because I had forgotten my glasses and could not read the measurements on the ironing board packets, abandoned his table construction and brought them round to the ironmonger’s shop for me.
He bought some varnish for the new table whilst he was there so it was not an entirely wasted trip.
In the end I purchased a very cheery ironing board cover with pictures of poppies on it. I almost bought a bit of wadding to go underneath it as well, but then discovered, because I had my glasses on by then, that you had got to cut it to size yourself and recollected that I had plenty of wadding at home, left over from when I made the bed head some months ago, so I will cut my own.
I do wish we could get on with doing the camper. It is so difficult to have so many other things that have to be done first.
I did not put the new cover on the ironing board. I am saving that pleasure for tomorrow. I had run out of day, and Ritalin Boy thought that he might like beef burgers and chips for his dinner.
I have not made chips for a very long time, but I was determined to be the sort of person who can vibe with the youth, and so I purchased some potatoes from Sainsbury’s and set about it.
Fortunately we have inherited an unwanted air fryer from Jack. I had been storing it in the attic, and by a happy chance of fate had unearthed it and brought it down the stairs yesterday.
It took me some time to work out how to get it to work, because it was the sort of modern invention that is completely featureless until it is switched on, after which it bursts into lively neon affability and you have got to press illuminated pictures, presumably because the instruction Press Here To Cook Chips is too complicated for a modern audience. It took me even longer to work out which of the peculiar little pictures was intended to represent chips, but I managed it in the end, and both Ritalin Boy and Mark had chips for their dinner.
I did not, because of my often discussed tendency towards rotundity, but Mark said they were jolly good.
I was very pleased with myself. I have got a new cover for my ironing board and a new skill.
I will be trying it again when Oliver comes home.
