Just Another Day

Today dawned with cloudless cobalt blue skies and sunshine.

I know this because we were just on our way to bed. We finished work at around four and had a last stroll round the Library Gardens to empty the dog as the new day burst into life.

It smelled glorious, heavy with the scent of blossom in the still, damp morning, silent except for the first calls of the birds.

One or two were already up and about. Our lonely, ugly blackbird was foraging in the moss, it must be hard work having a bird-wife and rearing bird babies, because he has got really quite porky in his single state, sleek and round but unfortunately still too ugly for anybody to love. I always feel so desperately sorry for him when I see him, in case his little heart is broken by solitude, but of course I am completely imagining it. He might be single because he is horrible and sexist and rude and not at all because he has got unappealing white marks and a funny blob that looks a bit like another eye on the top of his head.

We took some pictures of the falling blossom whilst we were out, and I have put one on the top for the benefit of anybody who didn’t happen to be up at half past four this morning and didn’t see how lovely the world is at that time.

After that we went home to bed, until the alarm rang at seven and we staggered out blearily to do the school runs, came home and immediately collapsed back into bed.

It is surprisingly disorientating to get up for the second, or even, as sometimes happens, the third time in a day. I wandered about absently for a bit, trying to work out where to look for clothes, which could have been in the drawers or on the drying rack or on the floor, and eventually we got up and coordinated ourselves enough to make a plan for the day.

This was a total waste of time, as there wasn’t really much day left. We made some sandwiches and I went to the library, where to my joy they had had some new books delivered. This was a huge relief because I am an enthusiastic user of the library, and over the winter when it was quiet in the taxi I read almost everything they had in there, except the stuff about diets and sport, and the novels with pink covers and loopy writing or pictures of high heeled shoes, because there are worse things than being bored in a taxi.

When I got to the checkout the nice librarian told me sadly that they are going to have to have some cuts soon, which will mean that they won’t be open so often. I felt sorry about this, because I like the library being open, even if they do choose their books on the basis of having big writing and lots of short sentences.

After that somehow it was time for work again, school runs and then the taxi rank.

We stopped at the Beautiful Wellness Holistic PamperMe Spa for our mid-evening swim at about seven. This turned out to be too early because the children who are allowed in the pool up until seven were still in the changing rooms squeaking and being overtired and whiny.

Worse, when we got in the pool some foreign parents, who had clearly not read the instructions, were still in there with their noisy offspring, shrieking and laughing happily and splashing each other, which was about as pleasing as finding mouse droppings in your flour.

I am not at all a nice person unless I make a determined effort, on the whole I am a grumpy old boot, and it took a very great deal of self control not to confront the erring parents and demand their immediate exorcism, which made Mark laugh as an unsympathetic witness to my Inner Struggle. I didn’t do it, and they got out in the end by themselves, which was a relief, and I had managed not to be a horrible person, which was also a relief.

We have resolved that we will finish and go to bed early tonight, and then tomorrow we will feel awake and blackbird-chirpy, and be able to get lots of useful things done like car mending and letter writing and sawing up logs and making biscuits and sewing, so we are going to stop at eleven, which should mean that we are in bed by midnight.

I am excited about tomorrow. It will be lovely to do some things that we want to do.

But today has just been another day.