Well, even with all of the best laid plans and some beautiful new labels – which eventually turned out to cost seven quid not eleven – note my spineless conscience and its complete inability to keep my recklessness in tolerable order, after all of that I have not been in the attic today at all.
This has not stopped me making all sorts of plans for its development and the exciting adventures I will be able to have up there. It has occurred to me that I will be able to remove my sewing machine up to that floor, thus easing some of the demand for space in my office whilst being instantly in situ for any running repairs. I had to do some of those yesterday because Mark’s trousers had come unravelled at one of the seams, and marvelled at how much easier it would have been had the iron, the sewing machine, the clothes rail and even the hat box all been in the same place as all of our beautifully stored and scented clothes.
I am very pleased about this idea and will get on it instantly as soon as I get bored with my dissertation, which regrettably will not be today. This is because I have not written any dissertation today and hence have not had the opportunity to get bored with it.
I did not write anything because Mark came home. I am aware that Mark’s role in these pages has diminished from being Romantic Leading Man to an occasional walk-on extra, but that is because he has spent all of the last week building Lucy’s house. He turned up exhausted at midnight last night, emptied the washing out of his bag, had a shower and fell asleep. This is not a great audition for Romantic Leading Man role.
This morning he got up, had a cursory glance at my car in which he ascertained that it had a flat tyre where the spare ought to be, and that it has got a water leak from somewhere, which he assured me I would be able to fix in a jiffy if only I ordered some Water Leak Glue from Autoparts.
Since we have not quite paid the last Autoparts bill yet I obliged him to call them, which he did, and it will arrive tomorrow, with a full set of instructions about adding it to the water tank.
I did not quite like to tell him that I am not exactly sure whereabouts in a car the water tank might be located, nor through which of its various orifices one ought to add the water. Obviously it can’t be that difficult since all sorts of people manage to add water to their cars without serious misfortune, and presumably the water tank has a lid on it which says Pour Leak Glue In Here.
He assured me of his confidence that I could manage it, a confidence with which I am entirely certain I did not agree, suggested that I take my car to Morecambe for a new tyre, and buzzed off.
I am going to have to go to work to earn some more money for a new tyre, because I have spent all of mine on sticky labels.
They are very beautiful sticky labels so I don’t mind.
Apart from that brief interruption the day has progressed almost exactly as usual. I have been to the library and returned the books their email service was making such a fuss about, and taken the dogs for a walk up the fell. Mark joined me for the latter, although I am not exactly keen on his company for this activity because his legs are a foot longer than mine, and he sprints up the hills at an alarmingly speedy rate.
He was mildly disconcerted to discover that since I am still endeavouring to be rather less rotund I did not have anything in the house that he wants to eat, since he does not consider watermelon and spinach to be an adequate meal. He does not even eat porridge, which I did have, and there is always the drawer full of chocolate buttons, although I am not sure if they might have gone off by now, it has been ages.
Partly this was because I had forgotten that he might wish to eat something exciting, and partly it was because there didn’t seem any point in filling the fridge with culinary delights for somebody who was going to disappear within twenty minutes of their arrival.
Fortunately my mother had given him some sausages, and he ate those, and I went to Sainsbury’s for some cheese, and there was bread lying forgotten and only a bit crusty in the freezer, so he did not starve.
I am sorry to say that he did not say Goodness Me How Thin You Are, and so it does appear that the whole chocolate-button avoidance project might be being a bit wasted. I would not have believed him if he had said it, being perfectly well aware that I am not.
Fortunately I have come to like watermelon, although not as much as I like chocolate buttons.
Sometimes life is filled with small sacrifices.
