We woke up to the horrifying sound of the clock striking two in the afternoon.
We wouldn’t have woken up then had it not been for the disgruntled sighs and fidgeting coming from the dogs, who thought it was high time that we made a family visit to the Library Gardens. We needed coffee, and dispatched Lucy on dog-emptying duties.
I was appalled with ourselves, and dashed around trying to compensate for such ghastly idleness with a flurry of tidying up and similar virtuous activity. This did not help.
Mark said that it is all right to sleep for nine hours when you have worked for a lot of the weekend, even if the sun is shining, and that probably we would still be allowed in to heaven.
All the same I felt very guilty, and even more so when I realised, once I was sitting on the taxi rank, that I had got nothing to tell you about because of not having done anything.
The only thing of note that has happened is this, and it was a good one.
Once on the taxi rank I decided that I would very bravely investigate the state of our bank account.
I have not looked at this since we returned from our French luxury extravagant blow-out hedonistic adventure in Disneyland, because I have been too frightened. This was because in our way home we stopped at a supermarket and spent rather too much money on wine. Also I have got a cushion shaped like Eeyore and the children have jumpers with Mickey Mouse on them.
Also we drank a lot.
The one thing of which I was certain was that we had got no money. The thing that I thought most probable was that we had so little money that it would take every penny of this week’s takings just to have no money at all.
When I finally plucked up the courage to key in my PIN and the numbers came up on the screen I didn’t see them because I had my eyes shut.
I am not very brave about financial calamities.
When I opened my eyes again to my absolute astonishment it appeared that things were very much better than I had imagined.
I looked at it several times and then called Mark over from his taxi to see if we had missed something.
We hadn’t.
Of course we are overdrawn, but by hardly any money at all, not even enough to merit a punitive overdraft fee.
When I pay our takings in tomorrow, not only will we not be overdrawn, but we will also be able to pay some of the school fees and even have some left over for the credit card.
I had not expected this and am feeling very pleased with the world. It turns out that I am not quite as reckless a spendthrift as I had thought.
We can put some new tyres on Mark’s taxi. We can buy some more yoghurt for the children. We can pay for the trip to the optician on Thursday.
I am very content.
The picture is Mark and Oliver in the garden workshop this afternoon. They are mending the lid of the kettle which had a hole in it an de burned my fingers this afternoon.
