And once again these pages are coming to you from the taxi rank. My brief foray into the world of thermal curtains and non-functioning washing machines is over, and I am home.
The curtains were wonderfully warm, actually. I slept very well indeed, although probably having had a very busy day might have helped.
I woke up with the dawn because there were no curtains at the windows, but that was about eight o’clock, so it was all right.
We had another busy day.
Lucy has got her new kitchen installed now, and we had to fill it with all the stuff out of the old kitchen. This took some time, not least because all of the demolition and reconstruction work made a jolly lot of dust, and there was a lot of cleaning to be done. This was not helped along by the discovery that Jack had taken the washing-up bowl to put underneath his about-to-be-scrapped Saab and filled it with the used oil. I was almost incoherent with astonishment about this, most especially so when it became clear that he did not have the first idea about the useful functionality of a washing up bowl in a kitchen environment.
Lucy sighed and rolled her eyes. I gave him a fiver when he popped out later on and told him not to come home without a new one.
He did get a new one, so that was all right.
The clearing up took all day. We rearranged all of the cupboards and shelves, cleaning as we went, and piling the tools into a massive stack in the unused corner where the kitchen used to be. We swept and dusted and mopped, and made an enormous pile in the garden of everything that needed to go to the tip, ready for Jack’s dad helpfully to turn up with his van later.
He turned up at about four in the afternoon, just as we were finishing, and we hurled everything into the van. It was packed to the roof.
I did not go to the tip. I loaded the dogs into the car and went home.
Loading the dogs was difficult. This is because I am having a Taxi Crisis.
Indeed, it is such a Taxi Crisis that it could be described as Multi-Layered.
It is this.
On my way to Lucy’s yesterday the catch which opens and shuts the boot stopped working. The boot is stuck shut and I can’t open it any more. I have got to fold the seats down and let the dogs in and out that way.
This made it very difficult to replace the Taxi sign, which sits on the roof and is powered by a wire which I have to poke out through the boot. When I got home tonight it had to go out through one of the side doors which will not be very good for it at all, they are nastily sharp for trapped wires.
Also I have lost the driver’s floor mat. I took them all out to wash them at Morrisons the other day and seem not to have put mine back. I have no idea how I managed that. I must have been very distracted. I am upset about this. It was useful, especially for muddy boots, which mine usually are.
On top of that, the windscreen wash stopped working. I do not know why. It does not make a noise any more so maybe the fuse has gone. I do not know where Mark hides spare fuses for cars so I could not replace it even if I could find the fuse box.
I might have to order one from Autoparts.
Even worse still, one of the tyres is looking bald at the edge. It is still legal in the middle so I can manage on it until Monday, but if it bursts the spare is under the floor in the boot.
I won’t be able to get it out unless I open the door.
The boot-door crisis means that I will not be able to collect any more firewood from the farm unless I fix it, but fortunately when I got home there was a massive stack of it in the alley, left for me by the builders. I tried to be pleased about this, but I wasn’t at all, not least because the circular saw has packed up and I can’t cut it up unless I buy a new one. Also I am going to have to spend a very lot of tomorrow bringing it into the yard and stacking it, so I am not sure that there will be much time for trying to open the boot whilst lying across the seats on the inside of the car.
I think I am going to have a very busy weekend.
Ho hum.
