I am so tired that my eyes hurt.
It is still daylight, but we are on our way to bed. This does not matter, because at this time of year it is almost always daylight when we go to bed, just the other end of the daylight.
It is like this when your entire working life is conducted at night. I much prefer it to be this way. We have already observed that Lucy’s day job is not improving her broad and tolerant perspective on life.
She has become very day-job righteous. She was not at all impressed to find us just making our coffee-in-bed when she came home for lunch today.
Of course she has been no stranger to lunchtime in bed herself in the past, which only served to fortify her newly-discovered virtue, and she sniffed with disapproval at our idleness.
Obviously we didn’t mind this in the least, if we minded what anybody thought we would be considerably more respectable than we manage to be at the moment.
It was unspeakably nice to have slept. In fact we are still trying to catch up on missed sleep after the weekend, which is why as soon as I have finished writing this we are going to empty the dogs and go to bed.
It is rubbish not to be twenty any more. When I was twenty it didn’t seem to be a problem if I missed a few nights’ sleep, and I did it so often for such ridiculous things. I can jolly well tell you that I would make much better use of that ability now if only it was still mine, how much I could achieve in a week.
However, that capability has long since disappeared, along with the ability to run up three flights of stairs without getting out of puff, and the ability to persuade young men that ten pounds was a reasonable sum to tip a taxi driver in a low-cut vest.
We went to the farm, obviously, once we were dressed and Lucy had gone back to work.
Oliver came with us.
We had acquired some old plates and cups which we had saved for him to use as target practice, and he was looking forward to using them.
With hindsight it was not quite the brilliant idea that it had seemed at the time.
He illustrated them with characters to create stories, this one the hostage, this one a bystander, this one the terrorist, this one the teacher from school, and so on, and then arranged them around the top of the shed so that he could take careful aim and only shoot the desired one.
This meant that my peaceful octopus-painting afternoon was regularly interrupted by gunfire and the sound of smashing crockery, along with a colourful running commentary from the sniper, explaining to us exactly what was going on.
This is not nearly as tranquil as listening to the birdsong.
We came back early, because we were supposed to be eating at our friend’s house, only to discover a text message apologising and explaining an unexpected crisis which had required more attention than dinner.
We were sorry not to be going but relieved to be able to collapse.
We had cheese and crackers and now we are going to go to bed. It is almost nine o’clock, and Lucy is in bed already, exhausted from her floristry.
Oliver will have to be in charge.
