I have distinguished myself today by the expenditure of considerable sums of cash.
It started last night when it turned out that Oliver would need a new suit for his venture into the arcane world of our military defenders.
Oh goodness, said Mark, gloomily, when I told him. If they accept him then he’ll need it for the mess and all sorts of things. You had better have a look at Savile Row. He’s in the south so he could do fittings.
Oliver is probably going to get considerably bigger than his considerably excessively slender form, and also can probably wear his dress uniform for most civilian occasions like weddings, at a pinch, so I looked on eBay instead.
It might have been eBay but it still cost a fortune.
The financial state of affairs was not helped by my having discovered, a short while ago, that almost all of my dungarees are now considerably too large for me. I have got some smaller pairs but, I discovered, not very many, and they are all in boring colours like black and brown.
In an inspired moment last week I bid on a bright orange pair – also on eBay, obviously – and a bright green pair.
Today I discovered that I had both won and paid for them.
Actually Mark had paid for them if we are to be strictly technically accurate, since my earnings this last week would not have stretched to the purchase of any more shoelaces, never mind a suit and a couple of pairs of dungarees.
My gloom was dispatched by the discovery that someone had paid a bill that actually I had forgotten about, which cheered up my morning, and I set off over the fells with a cherry spring in my step.
It was an absolutely glorious morning. The sun shone for the first time I can remember for ages, and I was so wonderfully warm that I actually took off my coat on the top, in the very same place where I could hardly stand upright yesterday.
It seemed shockingly wasteful not to gain maximum benefit from the sunlight, so when I got home I cleaned out the taxi, even though there has hardly been anybody in it, and I am not expecting there to be anybody in it for a few weeks, either.
Still, I shall be in it, and so I scrubbed away the not-very-minor traces of firewood shifting and dog mud baths and washed it clean.
I mean I washed the inside, not the outside. I don’t care what the outside looks like. I don’t have to look at that. I washed the boot lid, because I don’t like getting my fingers dirty when I have to lift it up to let some customers put their dog in the boot.
A surprising number don’t want to do this, actually. They insist that their dog is far too sensitive and fragile to sit in the boot of a car – which is a Berlingo with a massive open boot and a dog bed in it – and must sit on their knee otherwise its little feelings will be injured.
I am entirely resistant to such pleadings and explain, wearily, again and again, that it is a dog, not a person, and either travels in the boot or it continues to be a pedestrian.
Neither do I allow idiots – almost always women – to sit in the boot with their dog, although lots of them beg to be allowed.
The human race is slowly becoming mental.
Our dogs always travel in the boot, unless the boot is full of firewood, under which circumstance they are allowed to lie unmoving on the floor in the front. They know that this is an exceptional circumstance, and stay very still indeed, staring up at me with expressions that are imploring me to notice just how very good they are being, which sometimes I remember to do.
They are being very good at the moment, actually, after a shocking ruckus the other night when I discovered that they have been taking advantage of my absence to lie on the sofa in the living room. The living room is utterly out of bounds unless we are in it, and they know this, but if they were people probably they would hotwire cars and tell fibs to the police, and so they took a chance.
I ignored this for a night or two, because of some misguided sympathy for dogs on the hard floor with only a cushion and a roaring fire between them and perishing from neglect, but on the third night I came home to evidence of a complete dog-party in the living room. Every cushion had been thoroughly dug up and dumped on the floor, even my nice shawl that I keep on the back of my chair for chilly evenings.
I was very cross indeed. I was even more cross when they refused to come and survey the evidence of their wrong-doing, and instead tried to belt off up the stairs to hide under my desk.
Hell hath no fury like a woman whose shawl has been dumped on the floor.
They have been forgiven now, but only just.
They still look guilty every time I say the words Living Room.
