I did not realise how tired I was until I sat down here at the computer. I thought I might like a glass of water and then decided that it was just too hard and that I could not be bothered to get out of the chair and trail all the way downstairs to the kitchen.
There was a brief but very happy interruption to creativity there.
I looked up and realised that some thoughtful earlier version of myself had already procured a glass of water and kindly left it next to the computer in readiness for this very moment, and just neglected to tell me.
I am not sure whether to be pleased or worried about this.
We are having a second night off, because of the pointless nature of waiting on the taxi rank at the moment. We have worked a few midweek nights over the last couple of weeks and yesterday calculated our average hourly rate at about £1.35 each, so we are staying at home until Friday when there will be some customers.
I am enjoying this small holiday very much. It is unlikely to last very long, in another week or two the Christmas party season will start, and things will pick up a bit, but in the meantime it is a splendid shirk and feels marvellously hedonistic. In truth I am not quite sure what to do with it. It is too dark to work outside, and you can’t spend the whole of the night eating and quaffing wine. I am sure I had some hobbies once but it is so long ago that I have quite forgotten what they are.
Mark has been out at work all day and in his absence I have painted the living room. I am feeling much happier about it now. It is much nicer now that it does not look as though it has been inhabited by a couple of sixty-a-day nicotine addicts for the last forty years.
Painting the living room is not an easy task because there is still a very lot of kitchen in it, and I keep having to shunt it about so that I can get to the corners. I have spent easily as much time shoving cupboards around as I have spent balancing on the stool trying to reach the ceiling with the paint roller.
It is done now except for the woodwork, which might or might not be tomorrow’s job.
Halfway through the afternoon there was a noise at the back gate and I went out to investigate.
It was the lovely yard man from the builders’ yard at the back of our house.
His pickup truck was absolutely full of wood and he was busily unloading it into our back garden.
Of course I tugged my jacket on and went to help.
There was tons of it, I mean really tons of it. The builders have been pulling something down that was full of stud walls, and we have inherited all of the timbers.
It is firewood.
There is a massive stack and a massive pile next to it. It will keep our house warm for weeks and weeks. It is a wonderful generous thought.
I could not be more pleased. The yard man was pleased as well because it meant he would not have to fill their skip and pay a hundred pounds to have it taken away and emptied..
I do not know if it is politically correct to burn wood now that Extinction Rebellion has been invented, but it is so wonderful to be able to keep warm with something that would have been thrown away if we didn’t, that secretly I don’t care much. It might not be as correct as gas central heating but it is free and also smells nice.
Mark was very pleased as well, and sawed some of it up when he came home from work. We piled it on the fire with reckless abandon, the house is gloriously warm, hurrah.
We had a further economy measure even after that, how virtuous and thrifty we are.
Mark needed a haircut but instead of giving the barber fifteen quid we got the dog clippers out and I did it.
I am pleased to tell you that it worked remarkably well, and he looked considerably better than the dogs ever do, probably because he sat still all the way through and did not once try to bite me.
It is an absolute bonus. He looks tidy and smart again and it has not cost us anything at all.
I keep wondering whether or not we ought to try mine.
Have a picture of the dogs on our walk this morning.
