We have not gone to work.
We worked late and woke up inexplicably early, and then after a busy day of Doing Things, we decided that we did not want to sit on the taxi rank any longer. Even with Wolf Hall to keep me company I still think I have had enough.
We went to the cinema.
We went to see the lovely, tragic film about Laurel and Hardy.
I have just read their biography, which the lady in the library recommended to me, and I can vouch for the film being every bit as sad and touching and wonderful.
Every bit of it was brilliant. The original Laurel and Hardy were brilliant, and the actors pretending to be them in this film were brilliant as well, and so good at being them that it was quite possible to believe that it was all real. Also they stayed at the Savoy, which was where we stayed on our honeymoon, so we liked that bit as well, and came home longing to go back there. Obviously we can’t afford to do this, even if we were to get married again and it was a special occasion, but you never know what exciting chances of fate may come our way, one day we might. One day the children will leave school and then we will have money coming out of our ears, instead of just out of our wallets all the time the way it does at the moment.
Talking of the children, we have had an email from Lucy, who has got an interview to be an apprentice policewoman. It is early next month. I read some of the things they have sent to her, and it all looks very difficult. You have got to pretend to be talking to some workmen who have made racist comments. I talk to people who make racist comments all of the time, but I don’t think the things I say back would be appropriate for an interview with the police.
I told her to go and practice with her drama teacher, and she emailed back and said that she was very stressed indeed now. This is because she has got another driving test on Monday as well, which she has got to pass or terrible things will happen. In a bright moment she has got her sex education class tomorrow. We have dared her to say all sorts of rascally but entertaining things, but I don’t think she will.
Mark took her car for an MOT this afternoon, and it has passed. It got a DANGEROUS fail to start off with, because one of the headlight bulbs had not been fitted properly, but the MOT man lent Mark his torch and let him fix it there and then, and it passed after that. I was relieved about that. You are not allowed to take your driving test in a car which says DANGEROUS on its MOT failure sheet.
I did not go for an MOT. I stayed here and wrote a play. It is doing very nicely and I am on Scene Three now. This is not as impressive as it sounds because Scene Two is only very short, the sort that you do in front of curtains so that the stage crew can change the scenery behind you without the audience getting bored. I am going to enter it for a playwriting competition when I have finished it. If it wins I will be rich and famous for ever, just like all playwrights, and I can go and live in the Savoy. At any rate there is five hundred pounds prize money, which if I won would pay one of the children’s school fees for a week.
Since we are not going to go to work we have decided to have an early night.
I am going to go and eat cheese and crackers and drink wine.
I have not been to the gym either, and worse, we ate an enormous bag of crisps and some chocolate M&Ms in the cinema. I can practically feel my spare tyre ballooning as I write.
The wine will sort that particular anxiety out.
Have a picture of the reasons we are not staying at the Savoy.
