Done done done!

I survived the weekend, and am now back to normal weekday drudge. This evening has been particularly bad. I did the filing. All of it. And the concomitant shredding. I have only just finished, at 22:55, having started over three hours ago. Still, it was seven months worth, so I suppose I can't complain about six hours work per year. I'd prefer to get no post at all - as far as I am concerned, the postal workers can strike for as long as they want. Anyway, nothing to do now until 2010. The pile had completely taken over one side of the bedroom, it was shameful, but as a result of my good work the house now feels hugely roomy, light and airy. Fantastic. What an utter waste of time though, I didn't read a single piece of paper that I filed. Nor at any time in the last seven years did I refer to any of the statements and other crap that I have just pulled out of back of the files in order to fit the more recent stuff at the front. As far as futility goes, this is up there: I open post, I leave it lying on the floor for few months, I file it, I keep it for about six and a half years, and then I shred it.

I now feel a huge sense of accomplishement. This is very dangerous - I could easily rest on my newly earned laurels for the remainder of the week and let the house go to wrack and ruin. A glance to my left at the area around the kitchen sink confirms that this has already started. Rather than writing this I should be clearing up dinner, but there is a problem. The dishwasher is full, and clean. I love my dishwasher to bits, but one of the things I hate most about it is that it requires unstacking before you can fill it again - a clear design fault. I rarely remember that the cycle has finished. There are no words that adequately describe the sinking feeling I get when I open it up with a dirty plate in my other hand only to discover that it is full of clean stuff. "Nooooooooooo!" My parents' dishwasher beeps at them when it is done, calling out to them. My father in particular is compelled by the plaintive beeping to get up from whatever he is doing and unstack it. I can tell you that the urge to unstack a dishwasher is not genetically inherited...

I have done so much filing I can barely remember what else I did today. Pudding and I went to Rainham this morning and didn't see a great deal. I am pleased to be able to say that I went to Rainham a day either side of the Eleonora's Falcon. Brilliant. We saw a Hobby instead, which was almost as good. I took some photos, mainly for my own satisfaction, but also in the hope I might get a really rubbish one to put up here. They turned out a little better than I had hoped, but what the heck, here they are anyway. I'm feeling a little light-headed right now.

"Sod Off!"