Goodness me, it has been a very full day.
It got off to a difficult start because of sleeping rather longer than I had expected I would need to. I worked last night, but even so I was in bed by one in the morning, and was horrified to wake up and discover that it was half past nine.
I did not even leap out of bed, but lay there groggily, blinking at the clock and wondering what was wrong with it.
Once I worked it out I got up, of course.
After that the day was all a huge rush. It started off with the clean sheets and the trot over the fells. It wasn’t exactly sunny, but it was dry, and the air smelled of autumn, and of falling leaves, and cows.
It was when I got back that I had the disaster.
The fire was out, and so needed to be re-lit. I emptied the ashes and chucked some old envelopes in underneath last night’s charcoaled wood, and lit it.
I stood up to put the lighter back in the drawer and in that tiny space of time the fire roared into life. Flames shot up the chimney.
I dived back to it and slammed the drawer shut and closed the dampers, but I could hear the damage had been done, even in that handful of seconds, and the soot in the bottom of the chimney had caught.
I dashed outside and stared at the chimney, out of which a column of resentful black smoke was pouring.
This lasted for less than a minute. In the time it took me to get to the front of the house and to stare up at it, it had stopped, and even as I watched, the smoke slowed to a trickle, and then a small puff every now and again, and in less than another minute, it had stopped.
I sighed with relief and went back indoors.
Five minutes later the fire brigade arrived.
Regular readers will know that I am more afraid of the fire brigade than anything else in the world. I would rather find a tarantula under my bed than a fireman. I would rather encounter a zombie in the Library Gardens in the dead of night than a chap with a yellow helmet and a fire hose.
The world is full of very interfering people, and one of them had interfered today.
The firemen looked at my – by now not-smoking – chimney and I looked at them.
You called the fire brigade, they said. Your chimney is on fire.
I didn’t, I said, truthfully. And it isn’t, I added, which was probably also true by that stage. Then I added, because I am a creative type, It smoked a bit this morning, because I was burning some cardboard on it, but it isn’t on fire.
They were reluctant to go away. They pointed their heat sensors at my chimney, which, fortunately, was cold. They looked at the absence of smoke, and at me, suspiciously.
I pointed to the steam coming from somebody’s gas boiler a little way up the street.
Perhaps somebody called about that, I suggested, helpfully.
They grumbled and glared, but they did not come in, and after a few minutes they went away, deprived of their fire and their extra firefighting cash.
My knees had turned to jelly by then, and I sat down on the front doorstep and trembled with shock and relief.
I stayed there for quite a while, as it happened, because somebody rang up about taxi insurance, and I had to sit and talk to them. I do not recall a single thing the insurance man said, but it was sufficient to give me time to recover.
I kept looking at the chimney after that, anxiously, but it did not smoke any more, and you will be relieved to hear that I was not burned to a crisp or suffocated by smoke, and everything fire-related was perfectly fine.
I had to go out after that. As you will recall, much of today had got to be wasted in trailing around trying to sort out the tiresome tyres on my taxi. This was, of course, an almighty faff, not least because when I got there they told me that as well as the rapidly flattening back tyre, one of my front tyres had become illegal as well. I did not have enough cash for that, and had to go away to Asda and get some, along with a melon for dinner, which reconciled me to the trip a little.
It was late when I got back, and I had to do the dusting and hoovering at a run.
I did it, though. I have got a clean house, except for Lucy’s room which will need doing tomorrow, because Jack is coming to stay this week. He has got a job in Bowness.
The day is almost done. I am at work, although I have not earned very much. I do not mind this because I think I have already had enough excitement for one day.
I am quite happy merely to sit and read my book.
