Still no swifts.
They are almost a week late now, they always turn up somewhere around the fifth.
What if they don’t come?
I am trying to reconcile myself to a world in which they are not with us. It feels almost unbearably sad to think we might lose the swifts, where will we find joy in life?
If they come back again I will persuade Mark to put a nesting box under the eaves, because the mighty Internet thinks that they are having problems because they can’t nest in new houses, and old houses are all being made so tidily draught-proofed that they can’t squeeze their nests in anywhere any more.
Our house is draught-proofed but I think there is still room for swifts. Still, a nesting box won’t hurt, and he is going to be going up on the ladders anyway, when he puts the tubes on to the divorce solar panel.
We could just do with swift-poo all over the conservatory roof.
The new heating system is coming along very nicely if incomprehensibly. There is a complicated spaghetti of tubes, glued together on the conservatory table now. It is a hot water system, which will mean that hot water comes out of the taps, and the stove and the divorce solar panel will warm it. Probably it won’t warm it very much, but this doesn’t matter really, because even if the water is only a few degrees warmer, it will make a difference to the washing machine, and the dishwasher, and the shower, all of which are making our eyes water every time we look at the electricity bill.
Already he has changed the bathroom water system. Since yesterday the taps and the tank at the back of the loo run on mains pressure. This means that the loo tank fills in hardly any time at all, and you can hear the water thundering into it like Niagara Falls if you stand underneath and listen, which of course I have been doing. Also the tap water practically squirts out of the tap and splashes your shoes. It was mildly alarming the first time, although I am becoming used to it now. Already the water is very cold for cleaning your teeth. I am not looking forward to winter.
The water system in our house at the moment was designed by some optimistic previous owner, who clearly got all of his plumbing information out of The Readers’ Digest Big Book Of DIY. I can tell this because I have read this as well, it is a splendid tome. However it neglected to provide details about efficient system design, and hence it is rubbish. So far Mark has just improved on it and bypassed some of the more irritating bits, but he is now engaged in a complete overhaul, and we have got pipes absolutely everywhere.
He is thinking about plumbing all of the time. I can tell this because every now and again he comes out with some small but unfathomable comment which needs careful consideration before I can quite grasp what he is talking about. He made a mysterious remark about wanting some olives this afternoon, and it was fortunate that I worked it out before I explained that they were in the jar at the back of the fridge.
I have not been helping with the plumbing. I have been faffing about really. I have paid all of our bills and started to look yet again at our finances for our next tax return. I have always just divided our tax affairs directly down the middle, so that we have a joint income, and both pay the same tax. That will not work if I take out a student loan to pay for the Master’s’s degree course, because obviously Mark earns lots more money than I do, because of the rural broadband, and so some more in-depth examination is going to be necessary.
I can hardly tell you how dull this is.
In fact, probably I won’t tell you.
I am going to go and cook some dinner instead.
