I do not have the first idea what has happened to today.
It seemed to vanish away from me, like trying to catch the steam from a kettle in a tea-strainer.
I woke up this morning with the very contented feeling of having no Advent calendars left to plague my conscience, and the day stretched ahead in front of me filled with gaping stretches of blissful leisure time, for me to fill with whatever contented activity I might wish.
I started off by sweeping up downstairs before I even set off over the fells with the dogs. I had some time to spare because some muppet had left his wallet in the taxi on Saturday night, and had telephoned begging me to stay at home until he could come across and collect it.
The kitchen and conservatory floors had not been improved by the ingress of a lot of sawdusty firewood and a rapidly balding Christmas tree, and I marvelled at how many times I could fill the shovel. I stopped halfway through, remembering that I still needed to bring in today’s armloads of sawdusty firewood, and had to do most of it again afterwards.
The Christmas tree has a very definite lean, by the way. We still have not decorated it, maybe tomorrow.
The dogs were hopping about with their legs crossed by then, so we went off on our walk. Rosie has decided that she can’t manage the jump into the boot of the taxi at the back of the house, probably because she has become so portly. She hung about this morning making pathetic little bounces, and I got so cross that I just drove off without her, which almost always works, and indeed it did, because in her terrible panic that she had been left behind, she took a flying leap and actually made it into the taxi whilst it was still moving.
It was a very wet walk. Fortunately I had brought not one, but two spare handkerchiefs, as well as the usual two I carry in my coat and trouser pockets, and soaked them all mopping away the small stream that had begun to flow from my hairline and across my forehead, spilling irritatingly off the end of my nose.
I do not much mind being wet, but the dogs got very muddy, which was disappointing when we returned to my newly swept floors.
After that there was the trip to the Post Office, I had to go twice because I forgot to take the parcel I was supposed to be returning, followed by a great deal of washing. There were my sheets and Oliver’s sheets and Jack’s sheets. There were my towels and Oliver’s towels and Jack’s towels. There were clothes. Even the dogs contributed their cushion covers.
There were all sorts of neglected administrative tasks awaiting my attention then, from sending out invoices, with rather more optimism than I thought they probably warranted, to paying our own wages. I had spent them again within a few minutes, mostly on the credit card bill and the but we had a brief
After that there was the clearing up.
Apart from the accumulated clutter of a house where the chief tidier-upper has been distracted for three weeks, there was a great deal of glitter all over my office.
Oliver, accurately but unglamorously, described glitter as the herpes of the stationery world, and it appears that he is right, between the Christmas tree needles and the glitter it will be June before we are tidy again.
I dusted and wiped and hoovered, and Oliver kindly replaced Jack’s sheets, and I had thought I might make a start on the ironing, but somehow it was time to start getting ready for work.
I will have to try again tomorrow.
