This is going to be a very short diary entry because the events of the last few days have worn my elderly body to a frazzle and I am going to go to bed.
My brother stayed last night, and we sat up chatting, and morning seemed to come round very quickly. After breakfast my parents turned up, and we all had a stroll round the tourist shops of Windermere, which was rather nice actually, because of course I don’t usually look at those places since I don’t often want to buy a souvenir, and usually I just go to places like the ironmonger or the butcher or the post office.
So it was pleasant to get a look at everything from a different sort of perspective, and actually there is a very nice furniture shop just across the road from our front door, with some beautiful hand made furniture which of course we can’t afford but which was marvellously comfortable and so we have put it on the list of things to buy when we win the lottery.
We have never done the lottery, but apparently your chances of winning are pretty much the same whether you buy a ticket or you don’t, so we think we have every reason to be just as optimistic as everybody else about it.
After they had all gone Mark went to work and I tidied up and did piles and piles and piles of washing, most of which was small boy related, grime-smeared towels and completely unused facecloths and trousers with the pockets stuffed full of things like twigs and spelling lists and interesting feathers.
It was a glorious day, and it all dried beautifully, which was very satisfying, so now I have got piles of fresh-smelling crisp white sheets and pillowcases and towels waiting to be put away. I am contemplating folding lavender in tissue in with it, just for that extra special insufferably smug feeling: maybe later.
A belated card and parcel arrived from Number One Daughter, which to my complete satisfaction contained some Chanel No. 5 soap. This was a very timely arrival because my last one is down to the barest sliver, and I was having to contemplate the awful possibility that I might have to bravely put up with washing with some inferior soap until we had got some cash, but fortunately I am now safe from such calamity. The card was ace, it had got pictures of them all on the front, we looked at it and speculated briefly about which of the three of them was the worst-behaved, but were unable to reach a conclusion, because actually they are all hoogliuns.
I am ashamed to say that at that point I sat down briefly on the sofa, and the next thing I knew I was waking up several hours later, to find myself warmly buried under a pile of contentedly snoring dogs. Mark came home, and we all went for a walk, and ate splendid day-old birthday pasta, and then he went back to work and I didn’t.
This is because I have got to set off early in the morning to York to collect Lucy tomorrow. Originally we had all planned to go, because it is Speech Day: but after some discussion this evening we decided that it would be kinder not to drag Oliver all the way back to York again, when he has just settled comfortably into wandering about the house in his underwear, eating doughnuts and playing unsuitable games on the computer, so I am going to go and Mark is going to stay here.
Hence I am going to have an early night, so this is a slightly abridged entry, in order that I can leap out of bed energetically tomorrow and not feel growly and tired and horrible all day.
Probably.
