Monday 25 July 2011

bean counters

It's just gone nine, and Hubby's asleep, of course. I'm doing a jolly good job of easing myself into Greenwich Mean Time (or is it British Summer Time), by waking up later and later, the closer we get to moving back to the UK.  (Unfortunately Hubby doesn't have that option as he will be working right up until five o'clock in the afternoon on the day we leave - we fly at eight). This means that our house is effectively on different time zones at the moment. When I zipped chirpily in from gym and yoga this evening, he was already beyond monosyllabic and slunk up to bed with a frown on his working-man's brow.
Rebecca Bryan was going to make an appearance tonight, as she has vowed to edit the first three chapters and get them off to an agent before we move. However, I've noticed that it's already nine, and somewhere in the house, if I can find it, is a really good book I'm three-quarters of the way through, and, well, nine pm is a little late to begin one's working day, even if I am progressing towards a different time zone. I hope Rebecca isn't too unhappy with me for my lackadaisical attitude (I'd ask her, but she scares me a bit).
Today the bean counters came round. No, they weren't actual bean counters. But they were actual fork and sheet counters. They gave me a useful list of all the army stuff that we signed for when we moved in three years ago. I spent quite some time today counting cutlery and trying to locate missing electric heaters, etc. Which is partly why I want a bit of time to read my book tonight as I feel like I deserve it, after being very responsible for a couple of hours this afternoon.
What I've come to realise over the course of my time as an army wife, is that the moving doesn't bother me in the slightest. I love moving house and going somewhere new. What I don't love is all the scary bean counting that goes with it. You know, getting fined for not having a tidy garden, or whatever. I remember there being a charge for excessive dog hairs on the sofa when we left Northern Ireland, for example. I'm such a bad housewife (I'm the antithesis of a domestic goddess - domestic demon perhaps?) and have such lamentable attention to detail that remembering to do all the right things to hand over a married quarter is just a bit too scary. And it's not just getting it wrong, it's the embarrassment of admitting that I wasn't a good enough housewife to bother hoovering the dog hair out from in between the sofa cushions, or checking that there wasn't a half-eaten cake in the desk drawer.
So I think Rebecca can come over tomorrow and get stuck into chapters two and three.
Come to think of it, I should have invited her over this afternoon to deal with the bean counters, and maybe she could just take over the whole moving business?
I know she'd do a far better job than me.

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