Small things

It has been a day of little adventures.

There seems to have been a lot of them.

The very first happened even before we had got out of bed.

I know that we are too old to be having adventures before getting out of bed.

Everybody knows about adventures like that. We have all seen Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

Anyway it was not that sort of adventure at all. We did not need to twiddle any promising looking knobs in order to take off into an enchanted magical world.

Our adventure happened because we were talking about Lucy with our cups of coffee. She is living a long way from work, now that she is permanently posted in Kettering, and it is costing her an absolute fortune in fuel and fees for being towed off the motorway at those moments when things have not gone quite according to plan.

Also it takes her ages to get to work and back every day.

Idly, I wondered if there would be anywhere she might move to in Kettering, and looked at an estate agent’s website.

Five minutes later we had found a flat which was just a bit cheaper than her current one, and less than a mile away from work.

Two hours later she had gone to look at it, and by this evening she had put down a deposit.

She is going to be moving in September, and so we are going to go to Northampton and help.

It is not a terribly thrilling flat. It is a top floor flat in a little block of flats, but it has got its own parking. This will be very handy, because it is a terrific nuisance to come home from work at four in the morning and to have to trawl around the streets of Northampton for ages, trying to find somewhere to dump your car.

It has got one bedroom and a little bathroom and a kitchen. These are not as modern and shiny as the ones in her current flat, but the kitchen, unlike her present one, has got a window, which will be lovely, and there is a hallway and landing, which will stop draughts coming in underneath the front door.

She is very pleased. We will make it warm and welcoming, and it will make her life a very lot easier.

We thought that this was exciting as well, and wasted a lot of morning talking about it and looking at pictures and being pleased.

Then we took the dogs to be emptied, and poor Roger Poopy lost his ball.

This was a sad little adventure, because we had nothing to throw for him. He could not hurtle about the park, barking and leaping around, and had to walk, forlornly, at our side.

We found it on the way back, which was a great relief. He had put it down when he went for a wee in somebody’s garden, and had forgotten all about it.

After that something else exciting happened.

I booked our tickets for the Christmas pantomime.

I have not paid for them yet, obviously. You do not have to do this straight away if you want lots of seats, which we do. Then I emailed everybody who might join us to tell them that we had done it.

You have got to have either a certificate of vaccination or a negative test for bat flu if you want to go to the theatre. This means that it is perfectly all right to go to the theatre with a nasty case of bat flu, but only as long as you have been vaccinated.

I am not thinking about the horrible fact that I live in a world where my papers have got to be in order before I can be allowed into a theatre. I would like to think that it might have changed by then, but if course we all know that it won’t.

I did not think about that bit, very emphatically. Instead I sat down in front of my computer and wrote to the lovely, lovely Midland to ask if we can stay there with them.

I looked at their pictures on the computer.

The Midland has been completely redecorated and looks utterly wonderful. It has got trees and flowers growing in the middle of it. This is not a jungle of leafy man-eaters, clambering all over one another and fighting for a turn at the window, like the ones in our conservatory at home. It is cool and delicate and civilised, with whispering leaves and pale ivory blooms. Everywhere has been painted in gold and cream, and the bar has been extended into the middle of the beautiful atrium.

They used to put the Christmas tree there. I do not know what they are going to do with it now.

I am very excited now that I have seen the pictures, and am absolutely longing to go. They have not written back to me yet.

There is going to be so much wonderful theatre this winter. I am so pleased and happy.

I hope my papers are in order.