I had a lovely time when I got up this morning, pottering around and peacefully doing all my little morning rituals undisturbed. I love Mark very much but there was a definite tranquillity about having nobody faffing about being helpful and getting under my feet or hanging about making ridiculously improbable lewd propositions and chuckling to himself. It made the start of the day refreshingly untroubled, and the dog and I had a gentle amble round the Library Gardens to start the day where we saw some sparrows having the most awful fight, and reflected sadly on the problems created by testosterone.
I called in at Booths on the way back from my school run and had a coffee and refreshing gossip with a social worker friend who I haven’t seen for ages. By the time we had finished and parted with unlikely resolutions not to leave it so long etc I had forgotten what I had actually gone for and wandered round the shop aimlessly mulling over the discussion and looking at nice things on the shelves. For reasons unfathomable even to me once I had reached the car park, all I bought was a bag of bean sprouts, and have been considering a potential use for them ever since.
I had some Cambazola with bean sprouts for breakfast, and made a Wensleydale wrap with bean sprouts on it to take to work. Just for the record the latter was not nearly as bad as it sounds, with some home made mayonnaise and dried tomatoes and rocket it was surprisingly edible. The former was not a good idea. Don’t bother.
I spent most of the morning messing about organising things in the office, which made me feel like a modern woman who is in control of her life. I paid the vet and the window cleaner and left enough money in the bank for the water bill and booked Mark on a course which will prove that he knows how to tighten nuts and bolts.
You have got to have a certificate proving this these days before you are actually allowed near an oil rig with a spanner, it appears to take one day per size of bolt. I have booked him down for three days which cost seven hundred quid and made me feel mildly unwell. He has seen a couple of people this morning, one said that he could start at the end of April if things went according to plan, the other said June, either of which will give him plenty of time to tile the kitchen and build some shelves. He is going to stay up there until he has finished his bolt tightening lessons and so I have got the cheese and bean sprouts to myself until he and Lucy come home on Saturday.
I spent the rest of the morning having a joyful potter in my little shed. I save this until last before I go off to work, because it is my favourite bit of the day. This week I have planted mangetout and sunflowers and two sorts of sweet peas and lupins and orange poppies and blue meconopsis poppies and marigolds and parsley and coriander and freesias. The French bean seeds and the runner bean seeds arrived this afternoon, much to my excitement, because the French beans are a purple variety that I haven’t tried before. I don’t much like eating runner beans, although Mark does, but I do like runner bean wigwams with their gorgeous red flowers very much, the difficulty is that I have no idea where I will put one, on account of the tiny garden. However this is a happy concern and is enlivening many a tedious hour with contented pondering.
If you are a young person reading this you may not yet have reached the stage of your life where improper suggestions made before breakfast seem dull, and the arrival of some bean seeds in the post will make you gasp with imagined possibilities. The response to this is that you will understand when you are older. I have got another fifty freesia corms to plant tomorrow as well as the new exciting seeds, and the thing is, you see, I only plant seeds one week a year. I am married all the time.
I find the whole thing quite thrilling, and keep popping out to look into the shed to see if anything is stirring yet, maybe tomorrow.
In the meantime I think I will have tuna fish and bean sprouts for dinner this evening.
LATER NOTE: I got home late and the fire had gone out. I was too tired and cold to mess about. I just had bread and butter and bean sprouts.
