Friday morning. I got up earlier than I would have done on a normal weekday, and didn’t mind. Packing the car up mostly with things that I wouldn’t need, but nevertheless wanted to take, I remembered that I ought to check the oil. It’s not something that I often do, but the last service was back in March, nine months ago, and I didn’t want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere at the side of a busy road waiting for assistance. Assistance, I might add, for which I would have to pay extra, not having renewed my membership last time it lapsed.
It was still dark as I grappled with the bonnet release catch to get at the engine. Getting the dipstick out was easy; it was getting it back in which was problematic. After some minutes of trying I headed back into the house to find a torch. I keep one in the airing cupboard upstairs because it’s always too dark to find anything in there. There was enough oil. There always is. It was time to go.
My leaving-the-house routine is always the same when I go away for more than a day. It starts upstairs always with the same questions. Are all the windows shut, and are all the taps off ? The fact that it’s winter and I know the windows haven’t been opened in the first place is irrelevant. Then there’s the decision about the central heating. Off or timed. The downstairs routine involves checking the oven about three times, and wondering whether to leave lights on, to make it look like someone’s in. This time I decided to switch the central heating and the lights off. It’s actually the same decision every time, but I still have to make it.
Before I left the house, I rushed back upstairs to make sure I’d switched the alarm off properly. I’ve gone off before and left it on snooze. It makes an awful racket, and I didn’t want to annoy the artists next door. I closed the font door behind me, locked it, and rattled the handle a couple of times just to check the door really was locked. It was still dark, so the usual mental chime to clear the fallen leaves from the garden didn’t happen. It would, though, on my return. I drove away casting the usual backwards glance to check the padlock on the gates. Lincoln Christmas Market weekend. Messiah CD. Tradition.