The world is easy when you're just playing around with it

[lizblackdog]

Some of you may not realise just how hard and unnatural it is for me to behave anything like a responsible adult sometimes. You don't know (because I've always been careful not to tell you) that I'm a person whose instinctive reaction to an electricity bill or a demand for council tax is to throw the brown envelope away without opening it - because if I don't let myself see the red final demand, it's obviously not real, and if I steadfastly refuse to acknowledge its existence it'll go away. And of course that'll stop them cutting off my electricity or taking me to court for non-payment, oh yes. Stands to reason, doesn't it? *rolleyes*

Now that I've admitted that, perhaps you'll understand how profoundly happy I am that right here, right now, all these things have been dealt with in a responsible adult fashion. The water bill I was ignoring has been paid, the council tax gets waived because I'm a single adult on benefits, the back rent's now being taken care of by direct debit and the last thing that was upsetting me - the electricity bill I couldn't pay - got dealt with today. Instead of throwing away the red bill or hiding it, I phoned them, and I asked them to come and fit a key meter (for Americans: this is a box on the wall into which I stick a magnetic key that gets pre-loaded with money. Pay-as-you-go electricity.) It means I'll never be blindsided by an electricity bill again, and that is a Very Good Thing.

Also, the man who came to fit it owns a working Springer Spaniel, so we had a good conversation about gundoggery and falconry and other fun things while he worked.

Elbow: the prescription-strength anti-inflammatory pills (Diclofenac, if you're curious) have helped enormously. Typing better than I have for weeks. I will probably switch the IM on tomorrow and see if I can cope.

Just came back from a walk to One Stop and back in the pissing rain, and the flat reeks of wet dog, which I rather like. Spike's invented a new trick - on the way to One Stop we pass by a garden surrounded by chain-link fence, and he's picked this as a regular crapping spot. He presses his backside against the chain-link so that the crap falls through onto the other side where I cannot possibly reach it to pick it up. Once would have been a meaningless coincidence, but he's done the same thing the last five or six times we've passed by this fence, so he's clearly doing it just to embarrass me. I'm very glad there's a bramble bush the other side of the fence, that's all.