Well it has been a splendid day.
You will recall that yesterday I had a discouraging shopping experience brought about by a failure to buy fabric to make new curtains for the camper van.
I decided that I would have another go today.
I won’t have any time actually to make the curtains for a few days, but I explained to Mark that the thing was, once I had got the material there then I could just tiddle about with it now and again when I had got a spare half hour, which would be a nice creative thing to do and would mean I was not just hanging about the house wondering if I should have a glass of wine or not. Not that I am doing that much at the moment, because we went off wine a bit after last week’s dinner party. We have been sober ever since, which is probably very good for us, and even if not then it is at least cheap.
Of course we started the day by getting up late, mostly because I didn’t collect Mark from the farm until one o’ clock in the morning when I finished driving a taxi and he gave up nailing an engine back together, but partly because it is nice just to sit in our lovely white bed with a cup of coffee talking to one another in the mornings. It is one of my nicest things to do, it is the time when we discuss our difficulties, and this morning he agreed that it would be all right for me to go and have another go at shopping to see if I could get it right today. He discussed his difficulties a bit as well, but I was unable to be terribly constructive because they were related to an inlet valve, so I smiled and nodded encouragingly and said I was sure he was quite clever enough to fix it, until he rolled his eyes and said he had better get on and do it.
First problem of the day to be addressed was dispatching some things to Number Two daughter that she had requested, some mail that needed to be forwarded and similar. The illustration at the top is her address, and may indicate why that was difficult, certainly I will not be giving it out over the phone to anybody in the near future. I seem to spend a great deal of time in the post office now that none of the children are at home, it seems to be one of those things you do as you get older, like growing hair in your ears.
I took Mark and the dogs over to the farm and then made my way to Barrow market, which to my joy was open, and there was the curtain fabric man, as large as life and looking smiling and unbowed by his liaison with the cross lady from the haberdashery stall in Ulverston.
To my enormous excitement he had some fabric which was exactly perfect, thick, and heavy, and velvety and soft, in shades of dusty pink and blue and grey.
“I’m trying to clear that out this morning,” he said, “you can have it for three pounds a meter.”
It is one of the nice things about being fifty that it is possible to feel absolute delight about something as unremarkable as curtain fabric, and I did. How much more lovely it was to have bought it today, when it was as cheap as imaginable, rather than yesterday, when it was still at the price I had been dreading that I might have to pay. What a marvellous thing that everywhere had been closed yesterday.
What was even better was that I didn’t need to decide which sort I wanted, because he had several different pieces, and so I can do all of the camper van windows in a different colour for each window, which is just going to be gorgeous. I was so pleased that I called Mark and told him, and he made a serious effort to sound pleased and excited as well, which I thought was kind of him.
After that because it was the special Christmas Shopping day I thought I would do some Christmas shopping, so I bought two new books for Oliver which turned out to be reduced to half price, because the nice young man in the shop said that was what happened on Christmas shopping day.
I was very pleased about that as well, it was an ace surprise. It was a lovely day.
I am so glad it didn’t happen yesterday after all.
