And we have sun.
I was so pleased I had a cheery amble round the village for my shopping this morning, which is a very happy thing to do when the sun is out, and has to be rushed with head down when it is wet or windy. Even at ten o’ clock the tables at the pavement cafes were sociably full, one cafe helpfully provides big plaid rugs for customers to wrap round themselves to encourage this activity, and people were sitting with them settled round their knees whilst they read their newspapers and sipped fresh coffee and enjoyed being on holiday in the springtime.
I bought crumbly cheese and soft olive bread and some roasted tomatoes for Mark’s lunch, and a bag of almonds in rosemary, and a handful of prawns to scald in spiced oil and eat on chunks of bread at bedtime and some daffodils which were just coming out and smelled fantastic. I went into the ironmonger’s to look at seeds but the French beans that I wanted were sold out, and Peter on the till said it would be next week before they got any more. He lives just up the road from us, and we had a pleasurable worry about the slugs attacking the new primulas for a few minutes before there started to be quite a big queue and I had to go.
I went to the newsagent next, because I send comics to Oliver at school. I can never think of anything to write letters about, so they tend to be short with a lot of pictures. Nevertheless he needs to know that I am thinking about him when he has homesick moments. He is amazingly courageous about being away from home, and according to the school website has been fishing and caught a fish at weekend. Several boys caught them and they took them to the kitchen staff to cook for dinner. They have been learning Irish dancing and playing a game where you have got to eat Maltesers with chopsticks, and it all looks like the most fantastically good fun: but all the same he is only nine and sometimes feels little and lost and a long way away, so I send him comics and write to him every couple of days so that he knows that we love him.
I don’t send comics to Lucy because she has a bank card and is allowed to use computers, unlike Oliver, so I just chuck some more money in her account every now and again when I have got some, and she orders anything she needs on Amazon and gets it delivered straight to school. This is much simpler and saves misunderstanding and messing about. If I am lax about the money bit she is quite capable of getting impatient about waiting and charging her purchases to my credit card, which can be a nasty shock, so I try to keep on top of it. Anyway, I don’t send her comics and to be quite honest I don’t think she has homesick moments in any case, she is about as emotionally fragile as a hungry Siberian tiger.
I bought a Commando comic, which is an ace publication that Mark used to read in his own childhood, it comes out every week and is just one story every week, some variation on a blood and thunder ripping yarn about heroic soldiers in the war, and a Beano, and went to the post office for some stamps. On the way I got side tracked into Rose’s dress shop to look at the pretty ruffles and lace and flounces that I like very much but which would make me look ridiculous as I am a clean lines sort of person and detail on clothes makes me look like a Victorian antimacassar. Mostly I went in to enquire about Rose’s dog, who is large and friendly and hairy, but who has not been very well. He was lying in the corner of the shop recovering on a large comfortable looking cushion and letting off occasional bursts of misfortunate indigestion: but very much alive, which is a wonderful thing, because he is old, and he and Rose are best friends in the world and it is lovely that it will carry on for a little longer.
After that I bumped into Sue from the library, and then into some of our neighbours, and then into Tony from the wine shop and then into another taxi driver. It took ages in the post office, because I used to work there until the postmaster and I recognised my unsuitability for any kind of retail work. We parted on relatively good terms and relief on both sides, but it is still nice to call in and exchange pleasantries, so nice that everybody in the village does it and so it took some time to work through the queue.
When I got back I had been out for an hour and a half and walked about two hundred yards. It is so nice when the sun shines.
