I am very excited to announce that the weather is starting to warm up again.
It was still grey and damp when we got up this morning, thick with cloud and quiet.
It was noon before the sun had started to filter through, giving a yellowish glow to the murk, and by the time I had got myself organised enough to peg the washing outside the clouds had cleared and the garden was beginning to steam in the unexpected sunlight.
It is evening now, and still hot.
I have been hot all day, because I made the brainless mistake of thinking that it might be a good day to bake cakes, and hence have been pink-faced and sticky in the rosy glow of the oven ever since. Even with all of the doors and windows open the combination of the tropical garden and the industrial kitchen combined to transform the house into a sweltering cake-scented sauna.
The result was a good one all the same, because Oliver was very pleased indeed with the cakes, mostly because I decorated them with some of the sugary stuff that pops in your mouth. I had this left over from Christmas, and it fizzed everywhere it touched water, with a surprisingly noisy effect when I washed my hands.
I made cakes and mayonnaise and a bucketful of salad, featuring everything I could think of that might be nice in salad, potato and bacon and cheese and garlic and apple, all of which I mixed up with fresh mayonnaise and lemon. It turned out splendidly well, although unsuitable for anybody not contented to be portly.
Neither of my resident daughters was especially enthusiastic about being helpful, which did not especially amaze me. Instead, since they are not contented to be portly, they went off to the gym, where they did burpees and jerks and crunched their abs until they were every bit as hot and sweaty as they would have been if they had stayed in the kitchen with the oven.
It is nice to hear them talking in their little gym-language of reps and sets. Rather like listening to people speaking a language that you learned at school, but to which you failed to give much attention, and have not used since, I find myself listening hard for the odd word that I can understand which might provide a clue to what they are talking about. They are very enthusiastic about becoming fit, which is endearing, in a surprising sort of way.
They came back starving, and rejected cakes and potato salad as not being suitable for athletes who are beginning to explore their lean potential, and instead ate all of the eggs and a great deal of fish. Having athletes in the house has resulted in the consumption of three dozen eggs this week, it is a good job we can get them cheaply from the free range lady near the farm.
Mark and the dogs had gone off to the farm. I would have liked to go as well, but didn’t for the obvious reasons of children and laundry and baking. Instead once I had deposited Lucy at work I went for another swim this evening, in order to do something about my ranking as the laziest person in the house.
It was lovely to swim. As I sloshed enthusiastically up and down the pool I imagined the rolls of fat dissolving away into burning energy and powering my back stroke. Unfortunately the power of the mind is less effective than enthusiastic hippies might have you believe, and it turned out that I was not a millimetre thinner when I got out.
I had a jolly good time, and went to sit dreamily on the taxi rank, and eventually Mark came to show me the pictures of the new kitchen he is building in the camper van, one of which I have attached at the top. It is the new work surface and sink, he has cut out the draining board with a special cutting thing called a router, and it is going to look brilliant.
It isn’t nearly finished yet, but it is still really exciting, it is going to be the nicest camper van in the world.
