We staggered home after the New Year extravagances to discover Oliver, who pointed out that it is customary to start a New Year with a friendly greeting, not the astonished question: “what on earth are you doing still up at half past four?”
The children appeared to have had a good party and were feeling pleased with themselves. We had had a reasonably lucrative New Year and were also feeling pleased with the world, and sat at the table calculating what might be paid with our new wealth.
In consequence we were late getting up this morning, and had to dash round organising our lives before we had to get out to work. It is still double time today. We went early.
We have had lots of kindly New Year messages and started our day feeling heartened. This happy feeling diminished a bit when we discovered that Mark’s taxi has also developed a leak of some sort of fluid. After a while when it has all leaked out a red light flashes on the dashboard and a sign comes on saying STOP in capital letters, and a little horn noise goes off. This doesn’t trouble me much but customers are not greatly impressed.
This fluid mysteriously leaks out when I put my foot on the clutch, so I have to try not to. This is tiresome, and I backed into Mark on the taxi rank this afternoon whilst trying to reverse without dipping the clutch. This was actually quite funny but would not have been had it been a taxi driver who has got a nice taxi, instead of just Mark.
This has meant that our New Year’s resolutions have had something of a mechanical-related theme. Our primary resolution for the New Year is to glue our collapsing taxis and pre-collapsed camper van into the sort of functional state where members of the public will not glare and step aside when they see one approaching.
We had thought that we would start on this newly determined virtue tomorrow, but Mark’s sister called to announce that she is taking possession of a brand new cattle grid tomorrow and would like Mark’s help in collection and installation.
I cannot say how very pleased we were at this news, it is entirely worth putting up with collapsing taxis for a bit longer if it facilitates cattle grids.
For anybody who does not understand the joy of this announcement, there are three gates to be opened and closed on the road to the farm. This means that if Autoparts absentmindedly deliver a part to our house instead of the farm I have got to get out of the car and faff about with gates twelve times during my trip over to deliver it to Mark. When I think about it, this may be why Autoparts make this basic mistake so often.
This, then, is the most spiffing start to the New Year, and needs only the purchase of a further two cattle grids to make us positively urban. Either that or the absence of sheep, either would be fine with me.
Therefore our resolution list runs as follows. I have limited us to ten because I think it is unrealistic to try and do more than that.
1) Install cattle grid, hurrah, hurrah, hurrah.
2) Fix my broken taxi
3) Fix Mark’s broken taxi
4) Fix the camper van
5) Lose lots of weight, do more exercise, clean the living room carpet, read a book about healthy eating and write a novel. Walk properly with the dogs instead of just chucking tennis balls across the Library Gardens so they can charge up and down having exercise whilst we are fatly blobbing about in a muscle-free sort of way.
6) Pay off Mark’s credit card and stop secretly buying things with it and then forgetting so that it comes as a tiresome surprise months afterwards.
7) Learn to fly aeroplanes
8) Only look at Facebook when I am not supposed to be doing something else. Drink less. Do not eat biscuits when I am not hungry just because they are nice.
9) Tidy up my desk and throw away the calendar because it is still on September anyway. Pay the window cleaner. Write the children’s school holidays into the diary. Pay close attention whilst doing this in order to avoid stupid mistakes.
10) Go to work even when we are not terribly broke, assuming we ever get to that point. Also try and get there at a sensible time. Some people go to work at nine o’clock every morning, it can’t be that hard to get there for six o’ clock at night.
I think this lot should be a splendid pathway to a healthy and well balanced life. It is all very simple.
If we just follow these few simple steps then by this time next year we will be lean, wealthy, organised and accomplished and our lives will be gleaming with perfection.
Just watch this space.
I haven’t taken a picture today. Have a blurry picture of the dog.
