Being Prepared

I got up this morning with the very contented sort of feeling that you get when there are nice things in your future.

Mark took his car off for its MOT and I took the dogs to empty them in the Library Gardens in the rain.

It was raining very hard, and I took my umbrella, and looked out from underneath it with a gorgeous feeling of absolute tranquillity and happiness knowing that the world was a beautiful place.

We sat for ages on the taxi rank and earned nothing last night, and then just before two o’clock in the morning the local nightclub unceremoniously and noisily ejected an entire badly-behaved party of nuisances who were the whole staff from a pub miles away on the other side of the fell.

By the time we had finished taking them all home we were almost two hundred pounds better off.

Of course this won’t pay for a whole weekend away but it will go an awfully long way towards it, and the worst of not having any money is over, it is lovely to live in such a benevolent Universe.

After taking the dogs out I went over to the ironmongers and bought some bicarbonate of soda to put on the carpets whilst we are away in order to make them not smell of dog. They don’t smell very badly of dog unless you put your nose right next to them, which I don’t very often, but I would like to think that I could if I wanted to without being upset by it.

After that I did some organising for going away. I spent some extremely uncomfortable moments reducing the quantity of my eyebrows which were once again occupying rather too much of the available space on my face, and then agonised about the packing.

Mark looked at the overflowing suitcase when he got back and pointed out that there was not at all likely to be any difficulty caused by not having the right things to wear, because I seemed to have packed everything that we have got, which was almost true.

The problem with not doing many things which involve wearing my very nicest clothes is that when we are doing something smart then it seems a waste not to wear something. I wanted to wear the brown skirt and the black one and the white one and the wool dress and the black dress and the chiffon floaty shirt and my comfortable jeans and my Minnie Mouse jumper, so I packed all of them, along with some spares in case it rains or in case I change my mind.

I have excitedly packed my usual boots and my snow boots in case of bad weather, and my smart boots that Mark thinks are nice, and my high heels in case we go anywhere smart, and my trainers in case my boots get wet, and my flip-flops for wandering about in the hotel. I have packed eight shirts for Mark because I couldn’t decide which ones I liked best, and then had to unpack one because otherwise he would have had to drive there in his dressing gown.

When he came back the car had passed its MOT and he was feeling pleased with the world as well. He helped me make some sensible decisions, like not wearing my tie-dyed rainbow T-shirt and cherry-coloured fleecy body warmer to travel down in and substituting a soft cream cashmere jersey and corduroy skirt instead.

It was not at all easy to get everything into the suitcase, which in the end had to be the biggest one that we had got. As I write it is sitting on the landing, with a large heap of afterthoughts spilling out of it, and might turn out to be difficult to close. I have remembered whilst I have been sitting here on the taxi rank that I have forgotten to pack any ties for Mark and think I might take another dress as well because I like it and it would be awful to be going out and think how much I would like to wear it, and it not be there.

Mark said that before he was married he used to manage perfectly well with clean underpants and a toothbrush, and so probably everything would turn out just fine.

I need to remember to pack toothbrushes.

I am very excited.