The headache has become a migraine.
It is not hurting very much at the moment, mostly because of the handfuls of very helpful drugs I have been feeding myself with the enthusiasm of a toddler who has just been handed their first packet of Haribos.
All the same it has left me wandering around in a state of woolly-headed bepuzzlement, the sort where you go into the kitchen and stand there, wonderingly picking things up and putting them down, and trying to work out what you have come for and whether the thing you are holding might come in handy to achieve it.
On reflection, this might not have been the appropriate frame of mind in which to telephone our mortgage company this afternoon.
It was a bit of a difficult call anyway, because instead of the usual dismissive indifference, I had the misfortune to be put through to an enthusiastic Irishman who wanted to go to great pains to investigate my query and give me the best, most detailed answers. I had to stop him halfway through an explanation of how one might turn a leasehold into a freehold to explain that I did not have the first idea what he was talking about, but it did not matter anyway because of having a perfectly functional freehold already.
He sounded disappointed about this, and tried to start the explanation again anyway, but I had been on the phone for almost an hour by that point and was trying to Cut To The Chase, as they say in scriptwriting.
Scriptwriting of American films, presumably, the sort of films I like to watch do not tend to include chases of any description, most especially not the sort with a lot of explosions. I have long suspected that these might have been inserted into films in order to give elderly ladies the opportunity to visit the bathroom and make a cup of tea without missing anything interesting.
Anyway, in the end I managed to get an answer. This included a further twenty minutes of detailed explanation, but went roughly along the lines that they might or might not be prepared to remortgage our house and might or might not be prepared to permit it to be rented out, and that we might or might not be earning enough to meet their criteria but it was impossible to give a definitive answer without a lot more hours on the telephone and some considerable paperwork.
I thanked him and hung up before he could explain anything else.
We are, as I have mentioned, contemplating moving. We thought that we might sell our house and buy a new one, but when Mark looked last night he found one that not only looked nice, but which we could purchase for such a ridiculously low price that we could very probably keep our house as well.
He is going to telephone the chap tomorrow and ask him about it.
It is in France.
Of course there is no point in going into lots of thrilling detail about something which very probably will not happen, not that this usually stops me, but I will let events take their course and keep you informed as they go along, if they do go along.
Apart from that I swept and mopped the kitchen and conservatory. Lucy and Jack have departed, and sent me a picture on their return home. It was of a large rat, killed by their cats and left on their bathroom carpet as a welcome-home present.
I don’t mind telling you I was very impressed. It was almost as big as Guffy.
I do not think Guffy is likely to have such a triumph for some time.
Ah well.
