It is very nice indeed to be back to normal.
We are not exactly back to normal, because there is a massive pile of laundry and a couple of cats more than normally feature in everyday life, but we are getting there.
We were woken up at around seven o’clock this morning by a loud and disgruntled mewing that turned out to be coming from the windowsill outside the bedroom window. One of the cats had slipped out for a night on the tiles, presumably when we were emptying dogs or bringing in firewood last night. We had no idea that she had gone, and hence did not notice when she failed to return.
This saved us a great deal of unnecessary worry.
I do not know what she did all night, but perceptively, she had worked out how to gain readmittance when she had had enough of doing it. I staggered out of bed to open the front door, and she stalked in, crossly, and rushed downstairs for her breakfast, after which she slept for most of the day until she detected the sound of the computer keyboard upstairs and came dashing up to join in.
They like the computer. I think it is the little patting noises of the keys underneath their paws. I have had to remove them both several times today.
They are interested in absolutely everything. Not a corner of the house nor any of our activities has gone uninspected. They like it best when somebody is cutting cheese. I think they can hear it from upstairs, either that or Rosie shouts for them, because it is one of her favourite moments as well. If anybody wants to buy them a Christmas present, they like Red Leicester better than Smoked Applewood, although they will eat that if nothing else is available. They also like sausage fat mixed in with their dried food, the fish skin from the smoked trout, and bits of my fingers if I do not get them out of the way quickly enough.
The dogs spent most of the day over at the farm with Mark. I do not know what he was doing, but it seems to have exhausted the dogs, who have collapsed into their basket and stayed there ever since. Indeed, I am writing from an office which seems to be bursting at the seams with unconscious livestock. There are two cats asleep on my desk and two dogs asleep underneath it. All of them are snoring and one of the cats seems to be dribbling.
I have been doing laundry and not writing my current story. I knew that I should have been writing it but I didn’t. Instead I occupied an extremely tedious morning telephoning insurance companies and trying to persuade them to sell me cheap taxi insurance.
It seems that such a thing does not exist.
The peculiar thing about it is that Mark’s taxi insurance has gone up this year by three hundred quid, whilst mine has not changed at all. There seems to be no reason for this whatsoever. Mark has not had any accidents, or convictions, or any of the other things insurance companies ask you all in the one long breath that may be recorded for training or monitoring purposes, and his car is exactly the same as it was last year, except rather more elderly and decrepit.
Certainly it does not go any faster.
The lady at the insurance company told me that it was because their costs had gone up. I said I did not believe that because my insurance was exactly the same. She said that probably there was a reason the increases had not been added on to my insurance but would not tell me what it was, so I knew she was just making it up. Indeed, she said, sniffily, that probably the reason was that we hadn’t been charged enough last year, which most certainly wasn’t true.
I complained bitterly and telephoned lots of other companies, but to no avail. We are just going to have to take it on the chin.
I have got three weeks before it is due and so I am going to leave it until the last minute.
You never know. It might even be cheaper by then.
