Springtime chill

It is so very cold here today!

On the whole the Lake District is a fairly temperate place, without much exciting weather of any kind at all, really. If you were to sum the climate up in a single word it would be ‘mild’, which usually it is.

Except for the last few days, which have distinguished themselves by an improbably heavy snowfall on the fells and an icy wind howling over them and down the slopes to the lake, bringing the taste of snow on its breath.

I have moved all my little plants back into the shed, except for the ones already planted out in the beds, obviously, where they are sadly picking themselves up again after a dreadful hailstone battering and some savage overnight frosts. The ones already planted into flower beds are trapped, though, and all I can do is hope that the walls are offering enough protection for them not to curl up and freeze. They are unbowed so far, I think which is lucky: they seem to be fairly stoic little things, which is encouraging.

It is astonishingly cold for the time of year, and has been rubbish for earning any money, somehow everybody in the country seems to have realised that the Lake District is a chilly and inhospitable place at the moment, and nobody is here. I have had an almost completely undisturbed day on the taxi rank apart from our ongoing contemplation of Paul’s difficulty with his little medical problem, and Richard’s satisfaction that his daughter has been asked to be in an advert on the telly for Weetabix, which we all think is very exciting.

I have been obliged to replace my winter vest and extra jumper, and am considering unearthing my boots again. I am a bit worried about the children, because I didn’t send either of them back to school with any vests. This doesn’t matter with Lucy, who would rather perish in a state of icy misery than put on a nice warm embarrassing vest: but poor Oliver has got the frame of a sparrow, and gets terribly cold very quickly.

I can’t, of course, do a thing about it, other than possibly phone Matron and fuss, and she will be brisk and polite, and probably dismissive, because of course she is very used to fussing mothers, and I suppose he is fine really, he does enough charging about to stay warm. I have just had a letter from him which describes a game of ‘cops and ropers’ that he plays on his bicke biyke bicke which sounds exhausting and probably keeps his circulation going perfectly.

In consequence of the weather and also the absolute and total absence of tourists, we are going to take advantage of the situation by having another day off.

This is rascally behaviour, because of course I should be at work. However, Mark has got a job interview in Manchester tomorrow and on Friday we have got to go to York to collect Lucy who has got a weekend exeat,  so we have decided to take the camper van and slope off by ourselves and then come back for the excitements of the bank holiday weekend, when we will very probably make up for it by working all the way through.

It is very exciting, because we haven’t ever been in the camper van on our own without the children, and there are loads of things that we don’t need to take with us like the PS3 and Lucy’s sack of cosmetics and clean underwear, and we will actually be setting off very soon.

Mark is downstairs reading things about trains whilst I write this, because the interview is with a company that does something with trains. He has got a job coming up offshore but it doesn’t start for a few weeks yet and he thinks that this one might be more interesting, he likes the idea of trains and didn’t at all expect to get to the interview stage as he hasn’t ever had much to do with them except Saver Returns to Aberdeen every now and again.

Things have not been helped along by my discovery that I have left the trousers for his good suit at the cleaner’s, and he is going to have to wear one of his other suits which he doesn’t like so much, which is a nuisance but can’t be helped. When he has finished his interview we are going to go and look at the shops, and I might be able to persuade him to take me to Tom’s Champagne Bar for lunch if he has forgotten about the suit by then. We are going to have dinner with my parents and then go to York for Lucy on Friday, so it is going to be lovely.

I hope Manchester is warmer than here.