I have been setting my life in order.
I have sawn up a huge stack of firewood and swept the yard. I felt very pleased with myself about this, because the tail end of the migraine is still lingering, like a guest at a party who is still hoping to pull the host’s sister and is loitering in the kitchen at half past two, despite the host’s pointed yawns and loading of the dishwasher.
I really would have liked to slope off back to bed, and so I told myself that I had been brave and self-disciplined, after which I took some more drugs.
This was my achievement of the day, really, apart from cooking sausages and chicken, most of which the dogs will probably eat anyway, except for one thrilling and terrifying act.
I went round to the estate agent, which is less than two minutes’ walk away from our house, as is everything in Windermere, and said that I was making a tentative enquiry about selling our house.
She was entirely airily blasé, as if this sort of thing happens every day, which obviously it does to her because she is an estate agent. I was not blasé, though. I was as white and trembling inside as if I were booking myself in to Dignitas.
She nodded cheerily and took some details of the house, and then looked up in surprise when I told her where it was.
Goodness, she said, there aren’t very many of those left now. They’re all holiday houses.
I agreed that I had spotted this.
Well, she said, there shouldn’t be any problem selling that then. They usually go in a few days. The last one we sold went the same day.
I gulped.
Fortunately it is a week before their valuer can come round to look at it, which gives us some time to contemplate the perils of rash action.
Part of me is thrilled to my core at the thought of such an exciting adventure, and part of me would much prefer to remain stuck in the mud.
I have been encouraged by the discovery of yet another house that I really like, this one I really, really like. It is a rather larger version of the Seven Dwarves’ house in Snow White, also set in its own woodland, with an orchard, a lake, a tennis court and a swimming pool.
If we sold our house we could probably purchase it and still have some change to invest in our pension fund. Oliver looked at it last night and wondered why we hadn’t bought it already, although agreed that it was midnight, and most estate agents are not open then, even in France. They do not have an emergency Out Of Hours Service for people who are frantically trying to buy a house in the middle of the night.
By the time I had thought about all of this I had worked myself up into such a flap that I thought I might go and do some ironing by way of calming myself down.
I do not think I have the temperament for adventures any more.
I told Mark all about it when he called. He was sanguine, and said that although it was a lovely house, thatch can be a complete nuisance and needs replacing every now and again and that he would want to look at that before he rang the estate agent with his cheque book. Obviously this is the sensible thing to do, which I thought was a Good Thing.
If there is at least one sensible person in the house then I do not need to worry too much.
LATER NOTE: The house had been sold anyway. This is probably just as well. We think we might need to spend a bit more time looking.
Twenty minutes is really not long enough to reach a final decision.
