Forgotten taxi

I forgot to go to work.

Obviously I didn’t completely forget, because if I had I wouldn’t be here now, which of course I am.

I realised my error with something of a shock, when half of the Peppers saw the car outside at teatime. Unsurprisingly, she wondered what I was doing, since I was still at home when I ought to be off on the taxi rank being gainfully employed. She came in to say hello, and I had to leap up and panic.

After that I had a huge guilty flap of hasty tidying up and bringing the washing in before hurling some sandwiches and a flask of tea into my bag and dashing off.

I had been painting.

I had not been sensibly painting the new living room, which was what I should have been doing. That needs all of the last painty flourishes doing to it before we start moving everything out and putting the carpet down.

You know all about that.

Instead I got my acrylic paints out and painted the new doors on the cupboard under the stairs. This was a very contented way of occupying an afternoon.

You can see it in the picture.

It isn’t finished yet.

I was halfway through painting the sign when I realised that I was almost an hour late for work.

I had been having such a lovely time I had forgotten all about earning a living. I was playing music and singing along with Gene Autrey, and Casey Jones At The Throttle Of The Cannonball Express, and occasionally getting up to dance around the living room. It is not a good idea to try to dance and paint at the same time. Even foot-tapping is not a good idea.

Roger Poopy gets worried about dancing, and kept jumping up to bark along with me.

The singing is still hard work.

When I caught bat flu I lost my singing voice completely. For months I could barely croak, and I thought, sadly, that it might be gone for ever.

It turned out not to be gone for ever, and I can sing again now, although it is not the voice that it once was. I do not have anything like the range of notes, and I have to keep stopping to breathe at inconvenient moments.

It is still loud, though.

The radio programme I listened to on the subject said that this is because of little scars on the lungs, and it is quite common with people who have caught bat flu. It does not get better, because it is scars, although presumably you get better at managing it and retrain your voice until it does what you want it to.

I have been practising this lately, and sing along to the housework at full volume whenever I think nobody is listening. I do not like doing it when anybody is listening because I keep getting unexpected wrong notes and running out of breath. This would be all right if it was a quiet singing voice, but it isn’t.

Flat and deafening is not a good description of a singer.

The day started very well indeed, because last night before Mark came to work he made a hole in the roof and fitted the pipe for the cooker hood.

This morning when I cooked his egg and bacon it worked.

I was very pleased indeed about this, because I loathe lingering cooking smells in the house. Nothing is nastier than coming to my bath towel at midnight and detecting a greasy odour of bacon.

Still less do I want to dry my hair with it.

Worse, the bacon leaves everything in the kitchen coated in a thin layer of fat. The underneath of the cupboards next to the cooker are already beginning to suffer.

I have been cooking Mark’s breakfast with all of the doors and windows open. This helps get rid of the smell but means I need to put an extra jumper on.

This morning I switched on the cooker hood, and bacon smells and grease were whisked away up a little chimney, presumably to make smears on the wall outside.

I don’t care about that.

I hardly had to clean the stove at all when I had finished.

I was very pleased indeed.

Life is getting better all the time.