How Tupperware is Seldom the Solution

I have a room dubbed ‘office’. Not a complete misnomer as the all three of us that run our corporate empire (the size of a small Caribbean island on a miniature globe seen through the wrong end of a telescope) forgather here. It was a tad chilly.
I turned up the radiator.
It started raining.

I have another room above the aforementioned room dubbed ‘bedroom’. Being a woman of logic I assumed that the rain was originating from bedroom. I lifted many a floorboard to discover a faulty pipe stop valve. I put a small Tupperware container in place.

Being a woman of logic I realised that this was not a long-term solution. Tupperware seldom is. So in due course I embarked upon a voyage of fixing. This is what happened:

In order to drain the heating system I had to open the back door.
In order to open the back door I had to apply a small hammer.
The room became chillier.
I drained the system.
The whole house became chillier.
I removed the valve and fiddled with pipe connections.
I refilled the system.
The one rain became two.
I placed two small Tupperware containers.

Tupperware escalation is not good.
I drained the system.
The whole house became chillier.
I fiddled with pipe connections.
I refilled the system.
I removed the Tupperware.

The next morning the house remained chillier. No radiators were working.
With a wandering Tupperware I removed air.
The house became warmer. Except the office.
I turned up the radiator.

Waiting, Determinism, Vodafone and a Lesser Known Russian Film Director

I’m waiting for a man.

No, it’s not him.
He’s at work and has just emailed me the following quote from Tarkovsky (a film director whom only the Unknowable Man might know about as he knows things that are generally unknowable). The quote says:

“I am categorically against entertainment in cinema - it is as degrading for the author as it is for the audience." As an author I find this is most reassuring but has little bearing on the waiting process.

I’m waiting for a man.

I’ve been waiting for this man for about as long as you’ve been waiting for me to write another blogpost. Possibly longer.

My New Year’s resolution is to find my memory. Which I mislaid somewhere in the autumn. The Autumn is a big place in which lose something. There are a lot of places to look. I’ve searched in the usual places that memories like to hide. Places like under my pillow, in the wardrobe, in seasons, out of seasons and under the cushions of the sofa. I’ve found old tissues, a dress I bought in 1976, a deal of frozen things and things I can’t remember what they are, what they might be for, or words to describe their unknowableness.

I’m waiting for a man.

This is why:
Picture the scene – New Year’s Eve, 2am, I am asleep somewhere in deepest Pembrokeshire. My phone rings.
The Physicist: I’ve….phone ….camera…(noises of nightclub)…shoes…taxi...
Me: Hello? Hello?
The Physicist: Where…can’t…(more noises of nightclub)…lost…
Me: Happy New Year!
The Physicist:…(crackle)….bad sig….

And so, on my return from deepest Pembrokeshire I began my waiting vigil. First I called the Vodafone helpline. Physicists can’t call helplines so mothers have to impersonate physicists calling helplines. Luckily, having received a lengthy explanation of the nature of Quantum and realising, through true mathematical proof, that there is no such thing as determinism, I am well qualified to impersonate physicists. And since I now know that there is no such thing as determinism and there is only probability I can resign myself, or at least probably can, to not knowing whether a real person will ever answer the Vodafone helpline.

I wait. Probably for as long as you have been waiting for me to write another blogpost. Luckily, since there is no such thing as determinism someone did answer. They asked me nothing about physics, cinema or Tarkovsky. Which was disappointing.
And now I’m waiting.
For a man.
To deliver the Physicist’s new phone.
It is as degrading for the author as it is for the audience.
I can’t remember why.