Of course, I made a fundamental mistake with my list.  I didn’t put anything simple down – well, one thing for the Sage to do, but everything else is a two-person job at least.  I won’t bore you with the whole thing (though I have bored darling Martina, who is much too nice to admit to it) but here are a few items to give the flavour  – ‘Fence the vegetable garden for the chickens’, ‘dismantle old greenhouse’ (this is sad, but it’s not worth repairing it, especially with two other greenhouses that we don’t fill), ‘take down summerhouse.’  Oh, and ‘gather up all metal junk for scrap metal merchant.’  I’ve got a deadline for the end of this month for disposing of this and other junk, otherwise I’ll order a skip and fill it (this is my compromise, but I’m a fool to have made it).  I prolly should add to the list the things I can do myself, to encourage me.  And add a column to mark each job’s priority (ok, this is getting nerdish, I won’t do that).

It was much colder this morning, so just as well I was going to a Nadfas lecture and not planning to work outdoors.  This afternoon, I had typing to do … so faffed around doing not a lot except read the papers and play my current favourite iPhone game.  Yes, I know.  Well, I like games and if I want to waste time, it’s my own.  In a few minutes my alarm will go off, reminding me that I have a date with the hairdresser.  I’m afraid that I smell of woodsmoke and probably have a lot of grit in my hair, but I didn’t wash it this morning – h’m, probably have a pillow smelling of woodsmoke now.  Oh well.  I’ll turn it upside down, not changing the bedclothes today.

Do you remember, you who are my sort of age, that we used not to wash our clothes and towels constantly?  Before the days of electric washing machines, when I was a child, when clothes were hand washed, *you* (your mother) sponged off marks and washed what was actually dirty.  In our case, we sent sheets and towels to the laundry, but we were very lucky to be able to afford it, it was much more work otherwise.

A few hours later

I had my hair cut.  I like going to the hairdresser and it was pleasantly relaxing.  I should get my photo taken for my new passport before I wash my hair and it goes to hell in a handcart again.  If hair can do that without me, that is.  Hell in a handcart sounds quite fun, but probably is a bit more rollercoaster than is pleasant.

I’m booked to play the organ for another funeral next week.  It’s all making me ever so introspective.  This is a friend, actually, or he was until he withdrew into himself and didn’t really want to see anyone. I’ll be glad when Andy is able to play for funerals again.

Oh, and we had a letter from the cleaning agency saying that they came and couldn’t raise us.  Sorry?  We were here and waiting.  I’d spent quite a long time tidying in preparation and stayed in all afternoon in case they were late.  No, I don’t know and I can’t be bothered to talk.  I’ll email.

Darlings, I’ve foolishly drunk the third glass of wine (I only half fill the smallish glass so that it’s a unit at a time, but all the same) and I’m tired because I don’t sleep, so please ignore the short paragraphs and bitty nature of the post.  Tomorrow, Weeza is coming over with the children and we’re looking forward to that, but the forecast is jolly cold so we’re not sure what to do.

Oh, and Ro and Dora have booked a holiday in France which is very good, but sadly and without realising, they will be away for the blog party.  Ro (we didn’t see Dora yesterday) is genuinely disappointed.  He would have loved to see you.  

1 It’s Al’s birthday today.  He’s in his prime.  Weeza’s birthday is on Thursday, when she’s the product of two primes – well, the Sage and I were young then.  Actually, I was young, the Sage was the age that Al is now.  Which is comparatively young

2 I listened to a mild altercation between a customer and a shopkeeper over a matter of change.  The customer thought she’d been given a fiver too much, the shopkeeper was quite sure she’d been given £10 so the change was correct.  That each was so anxious not to diddle the other was rather lovely and typical of this town.

3 We went to visit Ro and I took my pruning saw.  His and Dora’s house has various trees and shrubs in the garden that were planted when the house was built, mostly too close to the house itself.  Ro wanted my advice, which was either ‘hack it back’ or ‘chop it down.’  So I did.  Ro took a while to saw through one branch and thought the next one was a bit much for me to manage.  He learned his mistake.  I have a two-handed technique that makes short work of a two-inch branch, even a dead one.

4 Sleep.  That’d be nice, hey.  Or more than an hour’s worth at a time, anyway.  I’d have got up, but Ben would have wanted to go out and I didn’t quite have the energy.

5 We took him with us to Norwich, just as well because he christened Al’s garden appropriately – it was all right, I carry a plastic bag in my pocket – and it would have graced the passageway otherwise.  Unfortunately, it turns out he isn’t that good a traveller and he had a little chunder on the way home.  I’d put a waterproof liner in the back of the Landrover with a comfy sheet on top, so unpleasant clearing-up wasn’t needed, just a pick up and dump job.  All the same, only short car journeys from now on.  We had a nice lunch at Ro’s local pub and left him there waiting to meet a friend, drinking Guinness and looking really rather relaxed.

We attacked outside this morning – I can’t really call it a garden and ‘the grounds’ sounds absurd and pretentious for what it is.  Two hedges, box and privet, have been pruned quite hard (I wasn’t there when the box was being cut back and it’s twice the height I’d said.  I expect I’ll do it myself next year and cut it to the ground because it is now at the height we want it to be eventually, which allows for no growth), a fence has been taken down and burned and some general tidying up has happened.

I’m not the ruthless type, in truth.  My natural inclination is live and let live, look before you leap, choose your cliché or your proverb.  But I’ve not kept an eye on the Sage and he is a hoarder, and somewhat slapdash to boot, nowadays.  He loves a new project and so do I, but I complete them and he loses interest and goes on to the next thing.  But I have had to give in, take it on board that I have no say at all in the most important areas of our life, so have to make the best of things.  It’s a losing battle – those of you who, like me, are fans of Saki, think of The Mappined Life.  Decision-making and choice are so often a delusion, but one is happier when one doesn’t know it.

In short, as you’ll have gathered, the outside gets me down but I’m trying to make the best of it.  A good deal has been done and I’m going to make a list of the most essential jobs this month.  I’ll attempt a rule that if it’s not on the list it has to wait unless it has been discussed, though the Sage doesn’t follow rules and, on the infrequent occasions we have help in the garden, he says what goes.  He calls me out, asks what the priorities are, I say there’s no point because he’ll do something else, he insists so I say – and nothing I say gets done and I wish he hadn’t gone through the false consultation.  It did today because I was mostly there and I got stuck in, I like hard work and it’s far better for me to do it than the Sage because he takes medication for his heart nowadays and I won’t have him working too hard.  I take a lot of care of him, drive when it’s more than half an hour or so, carry anything heavy, go upstairs if something is needed – all the obvious, but he’d be oblivious, if you’ll excuse the play on words.

Fed up?  Oh yes, not at the work but at its overwhelming nature.  Every year we start out with good intentions, but it’s too much.  Frost all year round might stop the grass growing but, even after the winter (and spring so far) that we’ve had, I can’t see that happening.  Many tons of concrete is a serious temptation.