Mark buzzed off to the allotment and I stayed at home to send letters to some more literary agents.
This is a time-consuming process, and after about an hour and a half I had written to three. I was bored then, so instead I occupied myself with the far more thrilling project of contemplating our theatre visit at Christmas.
I wrote a message on Facebook to all of our friends and family who come with us. Within about ten seconds this had turned into a long rambling group-message containing lots of entertaining observations and one or two insults, but not much actual useful information, so I gave up and booked it anyway. At least, I booked the hotel. Irritatingly, the theatre was closed for the holiday. I will just have to hope that they have not had a sudden rush on pantomime tickets before I get up on Tuesday morning.
By the time I had finished I was freezing, which was partly what made me think of December.
Because it is springtime we have not been stoking the fire up, and although it has not gone out it is on the slowest possible smoulder. I know that this is ridiculous, because obviously you can still have a good log fire and warm feet even if there are bluebells in the garden, but it feels uncomfortably wrong and hence I have had to cocoon myself in layers of jumpers and woolly socks.
My favourite jumper is easily identifiable. I have worn it to go to work every single night for the whole of the winter, occasionally washing it carefully by hand and drying it in haste ready for tomorrow.
It is easily identifiable now because it has utterly worn out.
Once upon a time it was a beautiful soft jumper, pale grey in colour and woven in fine cashmere and silk.
I loved it because it had a wide neckline, elbow length sleeves, and hung comfortably over whatever I might be wearing underneath it. It was lightweight and beautiful and warm, and I hardly knew I was wearing it.
It is still very pleasingly warm, and I still hardly know I am wearing it, except it is no longer beautiful. It has been worn and washed so often that it has worn into holes.
I have darned some of them, only for more holes to spring up beside them, and despite all my careful efforts, it has begun to lose its shape.
Ths is a small tragedy in my uneventful life. I am steeling myself for the terribly sad moment when it will no longer be decently wearable, even for a taxi driver, and I will have to put it in the workshop rag bag and find something else.
Of course I do have other jumpers, but nothing that suits my fidgety itch-prone personality nearly so well. I can be driven to unbearable wriggling by a label in a neckline, and have to cut them all out.
I am hoping for the warm weather to hurry up so that the question can be shelved at least until October.
Either that or for another perfect jumper to appear.
The picture is the potatoes on Mark’s allotment. It is not as awful as it looks. You can just about see the potatoes poking through, and he has dug all of the weeds out and put them on the top where they will rot down and act as a mulch. This is because he says the weather is uncomfortably dry for growing things.
I think he would feel differently if he were in charge of the washing.
