I have been organising my life for when the day comes when I don’t live it any more.
It is like a bucket list but less exciting.
There are all sorts of things that I will not be able to do once I am gone, and so I need to sort them out now.
I have re-registered for a Government Gateway account. The purpose of these is to keep your relationship with the Inland Revenue endlessly fresh and exciting. I have had an account that has not worked at all for ages, and so today I denied all knowledge of it and started again from the very beginning.
It is much easier now than it was when I first got one. Back in the olden days you had to apply and then wait until the Government wrote you a letter, just to check that you weren’t some electronic rascal trying to pay another person’s tax.
In the end it all went through very easily, and I was so entranced by the whole user-friendliness of the system that I registered Mark for one as well. It was almost as easy as the time when I had to explain my absence of tax to the relaxed and sleepy Jamaican in their call centre, although ultimately less costly.
Once I had registered us both for online finding out about things I spent an interesting half an hour looking at things like the pension that the Government is planning to give me, and wondering how I am going to fund my extravagant lifestyle with it.
I am sure something will turn up between now and then.
The next thing on my bucket list was to make us both appointments for taxi medicals when ours run out at Christmas. This had got to be done now because mostly this winter I am not going to be here, and I don’t want all of the appointments to be taken when I am.
I told the lady that I needed to see the doctor anyway if they had an appointment free this week, and she said that they weren’t doing much so I could come now if I liked.
I liked that idea, it was more interesting than worrying about my pension, and so had a happy stroll through satisfying mounds of red-gold leaves to the doctor’s surgery.
The doctor, who looked like a fourth former on work experience, said that I have got genetic cholesterol and made me an appointment to go to some unmissable event called a lipid clinic. This is what you go to when you can blame your parents for your health issues. Then they get in touch with your children and tell them that they have probably got genetic cholesterol as well, and it is likely to be your fault.
I can’t say I am very concerned about the lipid clinic. Apparently there is a twenty six week wait for an appointment. I will be old and grey by then and nearly collecting my tiny pension.
I was pleased to have marked another To Do thing off my bucket list.
I strolled back through the lovely shuffly leaves, and collected my prescription. I combined this with another To Do thing, which was to call in at the ironmonger’s and purchase some plastic tubs for washing my clothes in the camper van.
I secretly bought some delphinium seeds as well, because I read in a magazine in the doctor’s waiting room that you can plant those in November as well, and they are my favourites. It had to be a secret because we are overdrawn at the moment, so don’t tell Mark.
Mark was busy building his Thinking Shed in the garden, so I shoved the seeds into my pocket on the way back.
The Thinking Shed is coming along splendidly, and the yard man at the builder’s opposite has given him some large plastic tanks out of their skip. Mark is very pleased with these because he is inventing something watery at the moment. He would like to use all of the guttering water for watering our little garden and cleaning the taxis and flushing his Thinking Shed.
He has adjusted the guttering so that we have got all of the water from the houses on both sides as well. We had already got most of that anyway, but some of it was dripping into their yards and leaking away. It won’t any more. Mark has repaired all of the guttering and replaced the pipes, and now the rainwater is all going to go into a complicated arrangement of large black plastic tanks and become Useful. He has explained how it will all work but I might not have been paying proper attention.
I summoned the children and startled them with the news that it is Friday, and that perhaps they might have forgotten that Oliver goes back to school on Monday.
They had forgotten, and a flurry of anxious homework followed.
Oliver has got a French oral exam on Tuesday.
The rest of the afternoon was occupied by the two of them making frantic notes from Google Translate. The French teacher said that under no circumstances were they to do this because Google Translate was rubbish, but Lucy said that he was a mad old dinosaur and that Google Translate had helped her to an A in her French GCSE so it would be perfectly adequate for a prep school oral exam.
I supposed that she was right and left them feverishly translating things like: ‘I like best to play football because it is good to be part of a team. This might have been completely untruthful but was easier then: ‘I spend absolutely all of spare time in my dressing gown killing zombies on my computer’, and will not turn us into pariahs next time there is a parents’ meeting.
They were still busy getting ready for school when I called in at home during the evening. Oliver could not be bothered to get dressed and so ran round to the Co-op in his dressing gown to purchase a pumpkin to be carved into special nautical shapes for the competition. Lucy was making a poppy.
Their bucket lists seem to be as full as mine.
It is almost over for all of us.
