Of course, there is a huge difference between me and him and between living with him and living with V.

For certain things, he has to do them NOW!

I’m more of a ‘OK that’s enough, the rest can be done later’ type of person.

He phoned me about 9.45.  He asked if I had taken the dogs out.  I hadn’t.  He had been to IKEA.  The light from the bathroom (if you’re a long-term reader of this blog you may remember the ‘incident’ from a year ago) is nearly falling off.  It needs replacing.  He had bought a new light.  He’s going to get someone to fix it properly.  Plus he got some other things.  It will all go towards making the flat ‘just perfect’ for our visitors on Boxing Day.

He said he was coming with the car and to come down and collect the stuff.  Just after 10 I took the dogs out.  I had been pretty busy all evening, clearing out the cupboard and the old fridge (destroyed by Piero) and reorganising (and a bit of cleaning) ready for the new fridge.

I didn’t put everything away again because I needed to discuss it with him.  I also needed to discuss some other things – like the money I owed him and the fact that I have invited a couple to use his flat over the Christmas period.  I mean, I know he’ll be fine about it but it’s to let him know.

He went to drop off the car at the office and then came straight to me.

He looked at the reorganised kitchen.  The wall behind where the cupboard HAD been was not painted.  He decided it must be painted.  My heart sank.  It was already 10.45 and I really did need to go to bed.  This is the point at which I would have said ‘OK well let’s see what can be seen after the new fridge comes’ – because it is much taller and, I suspect, the unpainted part of the wall will be covered by it.

But, as I know, once he has some idea about organising or cleaning or decorating, it is quite useless to try and talk him out of it.  It’s better to just let him get on with it.

I said that I was really sorry but I had to go to bed.  He understood.  Or, rather, he said he understood.  Telling me to go to bed more than once (whilst I was preparing coffee for the morning, cleaning my teeth, preparing my clothes for the morning, etc.)  He started painting and I went to bed.  I forgot to tell him to leave everything and I would put the cupboard and old, destroyed fridge back in the morning.  I decided that this was not quite the right time to talk about all the other things.

And this morning, everything was clean and tidy.  Everything was done.

Since I started writing this post, the new fridge has been delivered and cleaned by him and he has gone to work.

Tonight, before Christmas cards are started (see the new stamps below), I will put everything back.

And we have a new way of stopping TBP (That Bastard Piero) from getting to the plug and destroying the new one so, hopefully, it shouldn’t happen again.

In the meantime, I must try and remember to tell him about the friends that might come, the fact that I might not be able to get a Christmas tree and some other things like that.