Not out of the woods yet

A somewhat tense couple of days. They came round again.

My relief that no-one answered the door was equalled by my alarm on seeing that the envelope containing the notice had been placed on the table by one of the lodgers. They only fold the envelope in, they don't seal it; it's a variant of their bullying, in which they hope that your dirty financial secrets will be discovered by other people in the house. I don't know if Bill had read it or not. I wish he had a normal job and was out during the day.

If I knew that I were to be on my own in the house, I wouldn't worry at all. I would secure the house and leave at around 6am, perhaps get the cheap early train to Glasgow and spend the day there. But because Bill is usually in, I had to sit downstairs to prevent them entering.

They tend to visit in the mornings, but the knock at the door came at about 3pm, just as I was starting to untense. I jumped with nerves but instantly went into role. The two inner doors were angled so that they couldn't see past the empty living room.

My vigil was disturbed by the unwanted Bill, who rarely answers the door. Clomping down the stairs he came. I had no choice but to intercept him. "Have you got that?" he asks. "Yes," I said, in a voice that I hoped was quiet enough to be inaudible to the bailiffs.

With all the stealth I could summon, I bent down towards the floor, before slowly rising again to peek out to see who it was. It was the coalman.

"Oh hello," I said, in an access of relief and warmth. I felt like ushering him inside and breaking open a bottle of the 2010 Le Difese Tenuta San Guido Bolgheri which I keep in the cellar for sexy afternoons with Trina. He manhandled the bags of coal into the living room, and left. Shaking, I retreated back into the kitchen.

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In happier news, there have been a couple of very enjoyable films on lately. Pulp Fiction you'll be familiar with, but Sightseers is a black comedy about a couple who discover an intense erotic and psychological satisfaction through murdering, in bloody and violent ways, people who trangress against their specific standards of behaviour, whilst on a holiday round some of Northern England's more twee heritage sites and tea shops.

It is a very English film, taking to absurdly comic lengths a certain class's repressed frustration at the way that dropping litter or not overtaking correctly become symbols for a lost halcyon age of agreed standards of behaviour. During the film, someone started noisily unwrapping a sweet. I felt like saying "Unwrap that quietly or I'll murder you."

On Saturday, Fiona (my eldest) and I went orienteering up Dalton Crags. We came first out of eight in the white (the novices') course, but then got lost on the orange one. Everyone was friendly and jolly about it as we returned sheepishly to base. The organiser kindly suggested that as novices on an orange trail we'd have fared a lot better with a compass, so we set a course in an Ebay direction that evening.

On the way to the start, we passed a natural woodland burial centre. I collected a leaflet. Apart from the beautiful landscape, the place immediately endeared itself to me when I read that "Inappropriate items at the grave will be removed by the Estate without notice. This includes wind chimes, windmills, toys and so on." I had planned to be buried in Scotforth Cemetery in Lancaster, but I will now be making enquiries at Dalton.