Really I don’t know where the days go.
Today seems hardly to have started, and already it is time to go to work. I can’t think what I have managed to achieve in the hours which intervened between my crawling sleepily out of bed this morning, and the sudden flapping that is going to start happening in about ten minutes when I remember that I have got to go to work. One of the taxi drivers asked me the other night why, since I didn’t have a husband at home to be looked after, I didn’t spend more time at work, and I was completely dumbfounded.
I can barely make it to work by half past six as it is, never mind come out any earlier. How people manage to make it to work by nine o’clock in the morning is utterly beyond me. I can start whenever I like, and I am still late practically every single day. In the unlikely event that I did have any spare time, I would most certainly not be inclined to spend it on the taxi rank, loafing about and chatting to other drivers.
The driver in question works from ten in the morning until ten at night, and sometimes doesn’t even go home then. His wife does the same, in a restaurant. I have no idea how they manage to get their laundry done.
The thing is that there are so many small things that need to be done, even more than usual now that we have reached fire-lighting time of year. Quite apart from bringing in firewood, life is suddenly assailed by the endless encroachment of sawdust all over the floors and smoky grey dust all over everything else, and suddenly the day is full.
All of these small tasks seem to take up ages and ages without actually having any noticeably beneficial effect. I went to the chemist this morning to collect Mark’s prescription, and spent ten minutes gassing to the nice pharmacist, agreeing that it was nice to have the sunshine after all that rain, and that it Brings People Out. Then I had to go back to the chemist again this afternoon, when I realised that after all of the chatting I had actually left his tablets on the counter after all.
I have got to go again tomorrow to get my own prescription which had not arrived at all, due to the tiresome roadworks on the M6.
In between I have emptied the dogs, attempted to harness back the colossal geranium, swept the floors and made dinners, cooked a pile of sausages for Oliver’s breakfasts, and telephoned BUPA.
We are considering, now that our fortunes have improved, by which of course I mean, now that we are not forking out colossal sums of cash in school fees, that we might consider insuring ourselves privately.
I do not exactly know what I feel about this, since there is nothing actually wrong with us, and if there was something actually wrong with us, then they wouldn’t insure it.
I don’t really know if I am sufficiently worried about our general state of health to blow a thousand pounds annually on not ever, ever having the misfortune to be admitted to an NHS ward. These are, in my experience, fairly ghastly places full of overstressed grumpy people where the medical aim seems to be for you to die as quickly as possible thus freeing up the bed for the next patient. I am certainly hoping that if we are forking out a small fortune they might even include Not Being Left In A Corridor Overnight as part of the policy.
I spent over an hour on the telephone to the very charming lady, being so indecisive that in the end she has sent me thirty different quotes, for thirty kinds of health insurance, since I was completely unable to make my mind up on the telephone.
I have looked rather bleakly at the thirty different quotes, trying to remember what was the actual difference between Full Medical Underwriting and Moratorium Underwriting, and whether or not we might somehow avoid paying for Mental Health Cover, since neither of us feels to be in any great danger of going barmy, and it doesn’t cover dementia.
At any rate, probably not the sort suffered by people whose main symptom is repeated, absent-minded visits to the chemist.
I will have to think about it.
