The joy of ironing

On the Saturday morning of the Ascension Day bank holiday, I swung down the stairs and ladder to the little bedroom-cum-book room and did the ironing. For me ironing is therapy. If the internal critic becomes too negative or noisy, I stick a playlist on and steam flatten the commentary line by line. On Saturday morning the internal critic was going full blast.

‘That’s it, mate. You’ll be brown bread by Michaelmas and forgotten by Christmas. What a shame you fizzled out like that. Lazy and unfocused right to the end. All those bright hopes you entertained to change for the better, to make some money to pass on, to open an honest dialogue with God. You’re all mouth and trousers. Always have been. That woman who did your astrological chart years ago was spot on — “diffuse”, she’d said. Flibbertigibbet. Well, you’ve had your chances to cut the mustard. You have wasted time and now time hath wasted you.’

‘Oh, shut up,’ I said.

I set up the ironing board, dribbled water into the iron and stuck the music on. First up was ‘Oh Yoko!’ by John Lennon. I like the jolly piano and the loopy lyric, and whacked up the volume. The bottom bedroom is a windowless cell about nine feet square. I flung open the outside door and dragged the ironing board into the doorway so that my right hand and half the board were in sunshine, and eased myself into the job with an easy pillowcase.

The door opens on to a public footpath that runs beside the house. On the far side of the path is a 100ft drop. A bank holiday weekend and sun after long rains had brought the tourists up the rocky trail in battalion force.