We have got a ten pound note on the table.
It is so long since we have seen one that it seems rather a curious object.
We have got it because Mark found a passing gypsy and sold him some scrap metal. I do not know how it is that he always seems to have scrap metal for sale, but he does. He sold him an engine and some old bicycles and some other stuff that does not work and that almost certainly he was not supposed to have anyway. I would not have been pleased had I known that he had got it all, but I was jolly pleased that he had managed to sell it.
In consequence of this entrepreneurialism, we now have ten pounds, and tomorrow I am going to go and blow it in the Co-op. Mark thought we might like to spend it in the ironmonger’s, on a new file for the chainsaw, because his is worn out, and the chainsaw is blunt. I was temporarily downcast by this until I recalled that the ironmonger does not accept money at the moment. He will only let you pay things at a very long distance from the till with a wavy card. Hence the ten pound note is mine, to spend as recklessly as I like.
It might be time to replenish the wine cellar.
We have been discussing our current insolvent situation, and come to the reluctant conclusion that it might go on for some time. The Government does not seem to see any great urgency to encourage people to spend their evenings drinking themselves into a staggering stupor in the Lake District, and, to be frank, it is on this activity that our prosperity depends. We think that we might need to start Seeking Employment.
I have not heard anything further from the Co-op. I think perhaps I might not have a blossoming career in retail in my future.
We had a quiet worry over coffee this morning. This was at least a short worry, because of having to get up and dispatch Oliver to school, which is being held in Lucy’s room where there is no Play Station.
We have not been doing anything about his education other than providing breakfast and encouragement, but today he has approached us with the troubling news that our participation has been required in a school activity.
His latest House Challenge is to choreograph and film a dance, to be performed by all the residents of our house.
This has got to be handed in by midnight tomorrow.
I was not overwhelmed with joy at this news.
It does not help that our house is monumentally small, and every available inch of space filled with furniture and dogs. There is not room to do a press-up anywhere.
I know this from Number One Daughter’s visits. I can reassure you that I have never attempted to do a press-up anywhere.
I am not looking forward to attempting to do a dance either, not least because the only place with sufficient space is the alley at the back of the house. Despite the lockdown, this space always seems to have neighbours in it, and none of them are above standing about and smirking if anything interesting is happening.
I do not know what we will do. Neither Mark nor I are especially balletic. That is an overestimate of our abilities. We are about as graceful as a couple of orang-utans having a fist-fight after a large dinner, with brandy.
If I replenish the wine we might feel a bit more like it. I will keep you posted.
The picture is of our party last night, and accounts for the wine needing to be replaced. Oliver took it, un-noticed, when he came to tell us that he was going to bed, in order that he would have some evidence for the world of his parents’ dissolute alcoholic behaviour.
I didn’t have a hangover this morning, rather to my astonishment. I felt a little fragile, and would have liked the alarm to have been delayed until a little, but of course it was not. Chapel Must Go On.
The picture might also give you some idea of how much available dancing space we have got.
Most of the house is like that.
