Raining

Back at work, and it is raining.

It wasn’t raining this morning, and when we went on our dog-emptying excursion we were so captivated by the birds we barely managed to remember to look where we were going, so it is a good job there were no unexpected surprises in the Library Gardens.

There are a lot of crows in Windermere, and they are very busy at the moment, searching hard for the perfect nesting site. They are in couples, peering down chimneys and standing side by side in gutters trying to bend over far enough to see up behind the eaves. The very favourite site for a nest seems to be the estate agent’s chimney pot which commands a good view of the skip at the back of the cash and carry, and there were some serious squabbles going on. One determined gentleman strutted round and round the flashing, beating off intruders and shouting abuse whilst his wife anxiously stuck her head down the flue, examining it carefully for evidence that it really might be a suitable place to rear one’s children. I hope the estate agent does not suddenly decide to get the fire going. it would be a terrible tragedy if they and all their babies were to be smoked out or worse.

After that it rained, which put Mark in a dreadfully bad mood because he had got lots of things he needed to do and they all meant he had got to be outside. He doesn’t usually mind the rain too much, he is surprisingly patient about things like water down the back of his neck, but today there was an awful lot of it, it was sloshing rather than pattering. He is still faffing about building his new garden shed, and has inexplicably brought his compressor back from the farm to store in it when it is finished, which it is not, and which is an enormous wet rusty object with about two and a half miles of oily rubber hose attached to it.

He has explained that he believes we ought to have one at home, and so far I haven’t said anything about it but he knows that if he leaves it on the lawn or in the kitchen until he finishes his shed-creation activities I will get cross, and I can see that he is beginning to feel worried about what he will do with it now. To his surprise and pleasure my car has just had a flat tyre, so he has been able to triumphantly plug it in and prove irrefutably the value of having a large wet, rusty compressor in the garden, which must have been a relief. I have pointedly explained that I need the space in the existing shed (which has windows all round it to let the light in and is about the size of a small porch because that is what it originally was) for planting things in the next few days and have ordered some more peat pots in readiness. I have also helpfully reminded him that one of the reasons that we don’t have much room is because of the large stack of tiles waiting to meet their appointment with the kitchen walls, and that once they are gone there will be lots of room, so he doesn’t need to worry, there is a simple solution staring him in the face. I went out to work then, which seemed wise, to leave him to stamp around in the rain with his compressor, but to be honest I don’t think he was taking any notice and I suspect the kitchen walls will be no less naked when I get back tonight.

I went to sit on the taxi rank in Bowness, looking out through the gloom over the lake, most of which was invisible due to thick cloud and squalling sheets of rain. Unsurprisingly there weren’t any tourists strolling along the pier, the only people about were one or two of the boatmen, completely enveloped in dripping oilskins and scurrying. The place had the sort of air beloved of Hollywood apocalypse films,  just before the piles of leaves start to twitch and the first ghastly corpse emerges and you realise that the entire town has been destroyed by a nightmare illness and is now populated entirely by undead flesh eating groaning creatures except for one beautiful and helplessly vulnerable teenage girl and her rugged and determined father who sits in his shed loading his gun and scowling grimly when he thinks she isn’t looking.

I got so carried away daydreaming that image that I actually jumped when somebody eventually loomed up out of the murk and tapped on the window, and even then they didn’t want a taxi but wanted to know if I knew how to find Beresford Road. I was so desperate for a customer by then I would probably have taken them, even if they had been a flesh-eating undead person, especially if they were going to Hawkshead or somewhere and weren’t going to argue about the price on the meter.

LATER NOTE: It has stopped, and what’s more the sun has come out for an end-of-the-day burst of colour as it sets. The sky overhead is full of wheeling pairs of crows again, diving and circling and shouting to each other, as you might after a stressful day of house-hunting and estate agents. Mark has called to tell me that he has got his compressor nicely stored under the shelf in the (potting not his) shed but that it is out of the way and I can plant my seeds as soon as the new pots arrive. I am very excited about this. It might be turning into a nice day after all.

    Mark’s new shed. Still not finished