Another abridged entry, partly because of the Easter thing and partly because I haven’t had a very exciting day, who’d have thought it?
Despite having no thrills in it, it has been a pleasant sort of day, because my friend Elspeth came over, and instead of urgently dashing out to work as soon as I had fed us all, I had a whole afternoon of sitting with my elbows on the kitchen table drinking tea and being sociable.
We tried to have a luxurious Easter lie-in at the beginning of the day, but this was not helped by Roger Poopy feeling unexpectedly affectionate at around ten o’clock and coming to kiss our ears. Mark rewarded his devotion by chucking him out into the back garden just in case, but he was affronted by such suspicion and belted off back to Lucy’s bed in a rejected huff once he was allowed back inside.
We were awake then, though, and made coffee. We had an amble around the Library Gardens and admired the beautiful cherry blossom, and then afterwards Mark scrubbed some of the winter-green slimy stuff off the garden path whilst I washed the pots.
When Elspeth came Mark tactfully volunteered to go off to work for a while, and left us with a large pot of tea and a quiet kitchen.
Elspeth has been my friend since we were young and excitable, and is woven through my life like the red strands of wool in Mark’s tweed cap, you hardly notice they are there but it would be a very different colour without them.
In Elspeth’s house she has got a husband and teenage children who are on their Easter holidays, and so came over in order to be somewhere else for a while.
We ate ginger and almond shortbread and drank tea, and listened to each other’s stories. This always restores my soul. It is very restful to be with somebody who knows your very worst and most embarrassing features, and who will kindly conspire with you to pretend that they don’t really matter.
In the end, of course, I had got to get ready for work, but Mark came home for a quick coffee and said that the roads were hideously overcrowded and that people were shouting rude things at taxis. This happens sometimes when it rains and people are feeling upset about traffic jams.
In consequence, we decided that instead of rushing straight off to work early we would have a little afternoon snooze and go out at around six instead.
This turned out to be a lovely idea.
I would like to live in the sort of world where there were so many hours in a day that you could spend as many of them asleep as you felt like, and still get everything done, including the occasional afternoon of tea and gossip. Our holiday has been brilliant for that, since we came home I haven’t had a single day of feeling weary and cross with the world. We are not in the least short of sleep at the moment, which is the nicest feeling imaginable.
Once we got to work we were busy. I have written this every time I have had a chance and it is already nearly one in the morning, so I am going to stop here and read my book instead.
The picture is the Library Gardens this morning. Mark took it and I am just visible in the corner. I am wearing my waxed rain coat.
There was good reason for this.
