You will never guess what happened today.
I have got a job.
It is a real job, an actual job, the lady wanted me to do it and everything.
It is really a real job, she will not telephone and change her mind two days before I am due to start or anything. This happened to me once, but I do not think it will happen this time, probably.
I am very excited.
I was having quiet worries about it for all of last night, which I explained to Mark in bed whilst he was trying to go to sleep. He said patiently that he was sure it would be fine and probably even better if I stopped talking and went to sleep as well, so I did, and as it turned out he was right.
We set the alarm for eight o’clock this morning, and I can jolly well tell you that when it went off I almost abandoned all thoughts of having any kind of job ever, because being woken up by a horrible noise in the middle of the night is not at all a happy experience, and the idea that it might become a familiar one was not cheerful.
I felt better after coffee, and Mark organised himself for buzzing off to Lucy’s, where he has spent the day knocking an enormous hole in their back wall in order to install a new back door. It sounds exhausting and messy and I was not exactly sorry to have an excuse not to go and join in.
I took the dogs off over the fells. It was a splashy sort of experience. Fortunately I looked down before I put my smart interview clothes on, because when I got back there were dried-up muddy trickles all over my legs. The dogs were a lot worse, but they were not going to be interviewed by a funeral director.
I had some hasty ablutions and jumped into the car, for the sort of journey made horribly anxious by a time limit and a car whose turbo is not working. I can’t remember if I have told you about this, but it isn’t. It makes uphill journeys slow and frustrating, a bit like driving the camper van, with people queueing up behind me making impatient gestures and occasionally accelerating past in a cloud of black smoke.
Mark has promised that he will fix it when he gets round to it.
In the event I made it to Lancaster on time, and sat for a few minutes in their car park, which is surrounded by the most glorious gardens, restoring my tranquillity and breathing in the mingled scents of fresh grass and lavender. This made me feel unexpectedly contented, and by the time I ambled in to the office I had come to feel so peacefully refreshed that I did not care at all that my smart shoes were suddenly a couple of sizes too big, since it is not Christmas so of course I was not wearing thermal tights.
The shoes kept slipping off, which ruined any possibility of a sophisticated entrance, and I had to try and bunch my toes up to keep them on.
Fortunately it was an interview and not a running competition.
Readers, when I got in there I forgot all about not wanting to sell my life, and just remembered how very much I would really, really like to help people organise funerals. I would like to do this very much indeed. It is a very difficult time, and people are not sure exactly what they ought to be doing, and I would very much like to be the patient sensible person who helps them to work out what they really want and what would be the best, last thing they could do for the person they loved.
I blurted something like this out, albeit in a less coherent and considerably more rambling fashion, and the lady nodded patiently.
We think you could do that, she said, and my world lit up.
I have got some forms to fill in and then I will be going to do some training. You can all stop laughing and rolling your eyes, because I am going to pay attention to Oliver and not do Negative Self Talk. I am quite sure I could turn up to work like a competent human being, just because I have been a taxi driver for thirty years does not mean I have completely forgotten that you are not supposed to pick your nose or investigate the contents of your ears when you have got customers.
I might just be the sort of peg that needs an oddly-shaped hole.
I had got my shorts in the car and went to the farm afterwards, where I got so scratched and filthy it was a good job I had not rashly asked to start tomorrow, it will take me a few days before the insect bites stop glowing scarlet.
After that I gave the dogs haircuts, because I knew I ought to get on and do ordinary things even though it was a very exciting day, and what I would have liked to do was pour a large glass of something alcoholic, preferably fizzy with a slug of added brandy, but of course I didn’t. I shaved the poor dogs before the heatwave arrives.
It is a savage and ruthless experience, the sort with an elbow-in-the-throat, and they were very miserable and traumatised, especially when I made them have a bath as well.
We all feel very cheated if the heatwave doesn’t turn up again. It is not looking promising at the moment.
It is raining even as I write.
