I have been shopping.
I have spent almost all of the daylight hours making a long and detailed list, and then trailing hopelessly around Asda staring at things and wondering whether I should buy them even though they weren’t on the shopping list.
It was an important expedition, because I hope with my whole soul that it is the last time I shall need to visit Asda before Christmas, at least for a serious major credit-card-thumping occasion.
I stocked up on everything that we are likely to need to get us through the siege month of December, like flour and shampoo and sausages. I added it all up on the back of the list as I went round. This was more of a personal challenge than serving any useful function, because it didn’t matter how much it was likely to be since I had brought Mark’s credit card instead of money.
Asda has got some splendid-looking things in at this time of year, and it is nice to look at them all, even if I only ever think that I could make that myself at home, and then don’t get round to it. It is December now, so they are playing jolly Christmas music, and the checkout staff are wearing cheery jumpers with reindeer on them.
I had to get two trolleys. This was partly because things like a Jumbo Pack of Loo Roll and Economy Dog Food take up a great deal of room, and a kindly man in a Father Christmas hat helped me take them out to the car.
I rang Mark from the car park to tell him that I had finished, but he declined my hopeful suggestion that we should both go home and just get drunk and go to bed instead of doing responsible things like unpacking the shopping and going to work. This was because of a vexing difficulty he was having with an axle, so I went home on my own.
I got home to find the builders from the yard at the end of our garden surveying their wall with some anxiety, this was because it is falling down. We park our cars next to it and sooner rather than later it is going to collapse on them. We all know this and have been ignoring it, because of the huge nuisance involved for everybody. They would have to rebuild their wall and we would have to park somewhere else.
Unfortunately the recent frosts had not done it any good at all. It had developed a large hole and a big bulge. Actually I don’t know how it has stayed up so far.
The time had come for action, since the absence of my car meant that there was a serious danger that the whole lot would actually collapse on top of a person. They festooned it all in alarm-inducing plastic ribbon, set a quantity of traffic cones around it, along with a sign which said: ‘wet paint’, and two large props, hopefully jammed into some of the holes. We all looked at it and made sage noises for a while, and then I unloaded the shopping and parked at the front. This is going to be a total nuisance all weekend, and probably for considerably longer.
When I got in I discovered that the kitchen carpet was sodden.
The washing machine had leaked everywhere.
I rang Mark, who began to change his mind about getting drunk and going to bed, and abandoned the camper van and came home with his sister’s industrial hoover.
We cleaned up and unpacked the shopping and mopped the carpet, and eventually decided that enough was enough.
I am now on the second glass of wine.
There is only so much excitement to be had in any day.
We are going to go to bed.
The picture is of the kitchen rug steaming over the fire, because by the time I thought about taking a picture of the wall repairs it had gone too dark.
