The gas man cometh – wasn’t that a title of a song. Well anyway that will be the title of today. In fact it wasn’t gas man it was gas men, there were two of them. I had to be at my boy’s new flat for 8am to await the arrival of the men who were coming to lay in gas from the street. A simple enough task for my day off. But let us take into account the fact that this is a flat without the benefit of any furniture, i.e. chairs, where the water has to be turned on at the stop cock downstairs and the electricity has to be turned on up in the attic, the toilet though working has no door and there are no refreshment facilities. To pass the time I spent some of the morning white-washing the newly plastered walls and then a spot of tool-tidying followed by some scraping lumps off the floor. Great stuff! In truth it was infinitely preferable to hanging around in someone else’s home without anything to do and one of the few times in life when I will be welcome in another woman’s house to do as much cleaning and tidying as I like. There was another unexpected bonus of course in that the fitter of the two men was exactly that, fit. I familiarised myself - visually you understand rather than physically - with the contours of his torso, nearly all of which was on display. I didn’t really need to keep standing by the window but I was drawn in that direction quite frequently. My interest was purely artistic of course – he would make a superb artist’s model – my only regret is that I didn’t suggest it.

I had to have a shower when I got home – no not a cold one, I’m not that sad – but because the dust is so…well, so too much.

I should really be getting on with something more useful but I am re-acquainting myself with ‘sitting’.

The weekend is looming, well it’s looming as far as I’m concerned. We are dancing out and I have to do something I really don’t like doing, I have to lead the other dancers and call all the moves. I have always been content to be a follower rather than a leader and this taking charge goes against the grain – especially when I am still not completely confident in my own ability. It took me at least 20 years to feel comfortable being in a lead role on stage and it may seem like a similar kind of ‘performing’ scenario but I am not a natural dancer. Just another thing to make me feel anxious and there are plenty of those at the moment.

So many people around and about my life are having angsty or stressful stuff going on and I don’t quite know who to feel for more. I know you can’t solve the world’s problems but ‘every man’s death diminishes me for I am involved in mankind’ and I take that to also mean that every person’s stress affects me.

However, I bought a goat this morning, and that made me feel a little better.