Lucy is taking her new career very seriously.
She explained that she likes working during the day, mostly because she is out of the door and inside the shop before she has time to realise that she would rather stay in bed.
Also she has been absolutely astonished by how nice and friendly people are. She has mentioned this revelation several times. This is the difference between working in the daytime, when people are sober and still have some money left, and working at night, when they are drunk and have just discovered that they have spent everything they have earned in pursuit of a hangover and a bucket of sick.
She is busily learning everything she can about floristry. There is a lot to go at, because at this point of last week she didn’t know a single thing, to the point where she would not have been able to describe the difference between a dandelion and a dahlia.
How quickly a life can change.
She is at work by nine, and finishes at five, with a half hour lunch break, for six days a week. Despite this exhausting schedule, she says that the hours absolutely fly past, and the day is over before she even knows it. This has never been my experience whilst at work of any description, and so I am pleasantly surprised on her behalf.
We have barely seen her, of course, because we went out to work very shortly after she got home last night, and were still asleep when she left this morning. Our contact with her has been limited to leaving a flask of coffee on the table for her lunch break, because the kettle takes too long to boil when you only have half an hour.
We resolved to spend today cleaning the bathroom, but of course we didn’t. Instead we set the self-propelling hoover off on its cautiously bumpy trundle around the bedrooms, nodded in the direction of housework by hastily making biscuits and mayonnaise and went off to the farm.
We had intended to get lots of things done, but instead Mark’s sister came to talk to us, and so in true shirking fashion we poured ourselves a coffee and sat around considering farm affairs instead.
It is Mark’s ambition to put solar panels and a greenhouse on his beloved shed, and he has all sorts of ideas about improving drainage. I would like to paint it properly and improve its bathroom facilities, the last rather obviously because I am less suitably equipped than Mark for emergencies of this nature.
Mark’s sister is of the opinion that Mark’s shed would be best improved by being burned to the ground and then buried, an opinion with which I have some sympathy, it is not a pleasing addition to the Lake District’s claim to be a site of Outstanding Natural Beauty, although I suppose it could be described as being outstanding. At least, it is standing up.
We spent ages pondering the best way to achieve everybody’s ends, and then Mark’s sister and her husband helped us to get the doors on to the camper van.
This involved some considerable shoving and heaving, because camper van doors are not designed to be lightweight.
In the end of course we managed it, and to our happiness they opened and closed without difficulty. This means that Mark’s rebuild has been accurate, so we were very pleased. They need to be sanded down and painted now, as they will look odd with all the rest of it, because of being the wrong colour. Monday’s job.
I meant to carry on after that paragraph, but was overtaken by a whirlwind busy evening of people wanting to be taken home in order to indulge their hangovers in peace. This took a long time. It is just after six now, and I am going to go to bed.
It is my birthday today.
Happy birthday to me.
