It is very late and I am writing this as a last-thing emergency because I had forgotten all about it.
I am not even at work.
Mark is at work. I have been at home doing domestic things. We promised ourselves that we would both finish early, that I would have emptied the dogs by about half past ten, after which magical witching hour Mark would come home and we could wash up, shower and go straight to bed.
Mostly we have not been getting to bed before about half past two, which means that we miss most of the morning. This does not matter in the summer, when there is lots of car-fixing daylight, but now that the Nights Are Drawing In we have got to adjust our timetable accordingly.
Mark has indeed been fixing my car.
It still has its mysterious white-smoke-and-oil problem. Apparently all cars of its particular species are prone to this. Indeed, if you are the sort of person who has kept a Full Service History of its Timely and Regular Services from Peugeot Approved Dealers, then the mighty Peugeot Manufacturer will unbend itself from its lofty Parisian heights and will nobly give you a complete refund in acknowledgement that their car is a bag of poo.
We are not that sort of people.
You will not be surprised to hear this.
Its previous owner was not That Sort Of People either, and so now it needs its engine rebuilding completely and Peugeot have managed to wriggle out of all liability because there is always the outside ghost of a chance that if only our car had been regularly serviced, it might have been the only one ever in the history of Peugeots to escape without expiring in a cloud of oily smoke.
We are resigned to this. If we want it to become an ex-smoker, we will have to organise it for ourselves.
Mark has ordered a box full of gaskets and has been taking it apart all day.
He has not finished taking it apart yet. He has not even got down as far as the engine, never mind managed to winch it out and start rebuilding it.
It is making him shockingly bad tempered so I am not even asking him how he is getting along with it. He can grumble into the gearbox where I don’t need to worry about it.
Whilst he has been muttering curses and waving spanners about I have been cleaning the house.
It was dreadfully dirty. I do not quite know how it has managed to become so unkempt, but it has. I do not even want to talk about it. There was dust and paw marks and suspicious stains and worse than suspicious smears.
I have swept and mopped and wiped and scrubbed.
It was so dreadful that I did not feel the slightest inclination to go out to work. I had not even nearly finished, and I wanted to carry on. I wanted a clean house.
Of course since my car is balancing on ramps with all of its important bits piled up underneath it, only one of us can go to work anyway, and tonight Mark offered to volunteer.
Do not be deceived. There is nothing noble about being the one who goes to work at this time of year. Going to work is a splendid excuse to sit with one’s feet up, drinking tea and watching films on Netflix, almost completely uninterrupted.
Both of us went to work last night and came in with twenty five quid between us. That is a lot of peace and quiet.
Hence Mark went to work to watch people on YouTube taking Peugeots to bits, and I stayed here and dusted the bedroom, until now, I am pleased to announce, that I have at last got a clean house.
Well, cleaner than it was, anyway.
We still do not have any kittens, as presumably you have worked out, because I would have told you by now if we had. Poor Guffy is huge, and almost completely immobile. She is spending her days lying on the back of the sofa, with her legs dangling down over the sides, huffing and panting and sighing in her overstuffed weariness.
I know how she feels. Every time I look at her I am secretly very glad that I will never, ever have to do that again. Children are much nicer when they are on the outside of you. The bit of parenthood when they are inside you, with their heels jammed into your bladder and their elbows into your spine, that bit is a bit when you would really welcome them being kidnapped.
Poor Guffy does not even know that it is kittens. She is not wondering what colour to paint the nursery and making fond awwing noises over soft bootees. She is just huge, and breathless, and uncomfortable, and they are still not here.
Soon, I hope. It must be soon now.
