Warming Up

I feel very at home already. I sat in the oldest part of our house this afternoon, where people have been sitting and warming themselves by the fire for 300 years and although the fire is not yet up and running for us, I felt warm with contentment. If there are ghosts here, they are benign ones, who had a good time living here and want the same for us. You don’t hear enough from those guys. Everyone remembers the restless spirits who chuck stuff around and make you try to kill your family after smashing through a door, but these are the headline grabbing exception. Most ghosts lived a life where they had some troubles, but were basically happy and are happy to share their house now they can no longer pick stuff up themselves.

Of course there is the possibility that I am just overwhelmed with calm because my family aren’t here yet and so I actually get a chance to sit down (as long as the dog is asleep). Who knows?

For some reason there is a lamp post in our garden, which I assumed was just decorative, but tonight I let Wolfie out into the garden and flicked the switch for the spotlights at the back of the house and the light in the lamp post lit up too. It was like magic. But then I am from Somerset so am impressed that pressing a switch can make light appear.

But the house may be magic. We went out to buy a car seat for Phoebe, as she’s growing fast and Sam from Halford in Stevenage did a great job of getting us the right chair and fitting it in the car. She gave me the book of instructions and I stuck it in my pocket. Later, I was at home and annoyed to realise that I had accidentally put out the regular bin instead of one of the recycling bins, and it was recycling week, so my full bin of recycling was not emptied. I love bins as you know and was embarrassed to have made such a rookie error in my tiredness last night.

Then by the gate I spotted what looked like the instructions for the car seat propped up against the wall. It must have fallen out of my pocket. Lucky I noticed (not that I will ever look at them again). Confusingly though the instructions were for my previous car seat. Which I hadn’t seen since we’d bought that chair, months ago. 

I had to check my pocket to see that I hadn’t somehow been given the wrong instructions. But the new ones were still there. Where had the chair instructions come from? Why were they neatly propped up by my gate? It can only have been the friendly house ghosts who had found the booklet in some box and then left it there for us to find, so we would know how to readjust the old chair and get a few more months of life out of it and be able to have a chair in both our cars.

Later I noticed that my neighbours bins hadn’t been emptied yet and I saw the bin lorry approaching up the road. There must be some weird system where my house was at the end of one circuit for the lorry and then it looped round and finished off at the next door house. I was about to take my dog and daughter for a walk but I somehow managed to negotiate a child, a dog and a wheelie bin 30 metres up the road so I could leave my recycling to be collected. It was worth the risk of death and injury. Another victory. 

Later I walked Wolfie alone in the dark. Owls were hooting and the cows in the field stood right by the path staring at us. Like at night time they are no longer benign and their true evil comes out. It was awesome.

Guests so far confirmed for series 12 of RHLSTP

Buy your tickets here