News

We got up unexpectedly early for dog-related reasons.

We were not entirely overjoyed about this, because the dawn had been breaking when we crawled into bed. All the same, the Easter holiday is over, and we were so profoundly relieved that we didn’t really mind getting up, how pleasant to know that you can always have some more sleep later. Obviously we are still working, but it is a quiet Tuesday night, and I think we will probably manage to go home and go to bed quite soon, which will be ace.

Mark went off to the farm to continue nailing the camper van back together, and when eventually I put the radio on I was surprised to discover that we are going to have an election.

We have had a very great deal of democracy over the last few years, it makes the Radio Four news awfully dull. There is a limit to how much  want to listen to lots of people commenting on and analysing a couple of mistaken sentences that some hapless candidate has accidentally said about the NHS or about social care or about grammar schools.

I know we are jolly fortunate to live in a country that doesn’t go in for natural disasters, but they make far more gripping listening at teatime. Perhaps the BBC should start making things up.

There really isn’t enough actually interesting news to keep them going for an hour at teatime. I am sure that I do not want to be teetering on the brink of nuclear annihilation, but at least I have been listening to Mr. Jong Un’s proclamations with bated breath, which is more than I can say for anything that has ever escaped Tim Farron’s lips.

I think I shall have to invest in some audio books or something, the thought of elections providing a constant background to ironing and cooking for the next month or so is not a cheering one. Thank goodness we don’t have to pay a licence fee for the privilege, how smug I can feel about not having a television now.

I told the children that we were having another election. “Oh,” said Oliver, with interest, “who’s in this one then?”

I would make a rubbish political commentator because even that simple question proved beyond my abilities to answer succinctly. I have not seen much of Oliver today because he knows that I would like him to have a shower, and is staying out of my way in order not to be reminded again.

He might make a good politician himself, his defence was that it was the carpets that were making his feet dirty, and therefore my own fault for my neglectful housewifery. Fortunately, unlike Theresa May I am allowed to respond with violence. His ablutions have been so infrequent recently that the dogs have bathed more often than he has.

Tonight’s shower has been explained to him as compulsory, however, because I have been cleaning and have laundered all of the sheets. When you live in the Lake District it is important to do this every time that it is not raining, because of not knowing how many weeks it might be before such a weather phenomenon happens again. Today it was sunny, in a grey and cloudy sort of way, and I washed everything.

I can do some more ironing tomorrow.

How I shall look forward to catching up on the news whilst I do it.