Poo-em

King Charles’ cypher has just been unveiled to us, in our case by Nigel at Windermere post office.

I cannot possibly be the only person who instantly thought that C3PO did not instantly  bring to mind the Royal Mail? I expect it is a misfortunate association of which we will be hearing a great deal over the coming weeks.

In other news, I am trying to write a poem. Did I tell you about that? I am sorry to say that this endeavour is not going very well. If I am honest it is rubbish. I am supposed to be baring my soul and getting people to see the world through newly poetised eyes, and I am entirely certain that I have failed completely.

I am beginning to suspect that I do not have a soul. This is tiresomely inconvenient when I am trying to write poetry. I do not have a well of inner angst into which I can dip. I have never wished for one but I can suddenly see that there might have been some benefits.

Today I have been trying to write it in in between telephoning British Gas, which certainly helped with the inner angst. They owe us a hundred and ninety quid and hence are reluctant to answer my calls. I do not blame them for this, I felt the same about the bank when we were overdrawn. They have assured me that they are On The Case and will get back to me with the greatest urgency, and I do not believe a single word. They had jolly well better get round to it, that’s all I can say. I spent ninety minutes in their telephone queueing system today, and a further half an hour answering stupid questions from their online ChatBot, none of which particularly helped me to access my Inner Soul.

All the same, if I can manage to squeeze it out of them it will be a jolly good thing, because we have just had an email from our current electricity company, telling us that the Government is going to pay our bills for the next few months. I am pleased about this, hurrah for Liz Truss. Just so you all know, I am entirely in favour of all of her modifications to the Government’s programme of extravagance, so if it turns out to be a pig’s ear then I am wrong as well as Hayek, Liz Truss and the Chancellor, whose name I would not entirely trust myself to spell quite yet.

Now that the Queen is dead I have not got much more interest in the news and telephoned the august Daily Telegraph today to cancel my subscription. A very helpful lady said that if I was just broke they could consider a massive discount instead, to which I agreed, and so for a couple of quid every month I will continue to be well-informed and occasionally surprise you with my keen grasp of current affairs.

We are not working tonight, after last night’s efforts produced forty quid. The winter is steaming in, all guns blazing, and so we are staying at home. I am going to write a poem without interruptions, and Mark is still welding the boiler back together. There is no heating, but the house is not at all cold yet, because of the conservatory warming it up in the sunshine. The sun has been shining even during the heavy rain today, which was a surprise when I went out to get the washing.

The dogs have been availing themselves of the sunshine by snoring on the sofa, so I took a picture, it is a dog’s life.

Instead of going to work we have been planning our reckless overspend at Christmas. We are having Christmas in January this year, because that is when our intrepid preserver of His Majesty’s Peace will be off duty. We have got a whole week of nothing much, and we think we will have a Christmas week then. We thought hard about what we might like to do, and the obvious answer was ‘eat too much and drink wine’, so that is probably what we shall do. Before then we are going to get the new heating system installed and paint the conservatory in an Aztec design, in between writing poems, painting pictures and making chocolates, and then drink single malt for breakfast to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

He will have to have a Sorry We Forgot Your Birthday card, I don’t suppose he gets many of those any more.

I hope the Gas Board gives me my money back before then, because it will come in jolly handy. They have already been sitting on it since last January, when Bristol Energy went bust and handed over all their assets, and so I have got no sympathy. I do not care if they are facing times of hardship.

They will just have to economise.