For a peaceful sort of day it has really been quite remarkably exciting, and largely full of young people.
This was not just Lucy and Oliver, although obviously they were about, especially when they were hungry.
Number One Daughter has been competing in an event to see who is the fittest person in Manchester, for a charity. Obviously we couldn’t go and watch, but we have been on the edge of our seats all day, or at least whenever we have thought about it. You will be pleased to hear that her team won in the end, which was splendid, and I could exchange feeling anxious on her behalf for feeling comfortably pleased and proud, in a motherly sort of way.
Number Two Daughter sent me a message to announce that she and her girlfriend are Moving In Together, like real grown-ups, as soon as her girlfriend turns up back from her current foreign adventure.
I am following this adventure on Facebook, with some interest. It appears to involve living in a yurt and travelling by horseback in a country of which I have never even heard, but which has a name rather like the sound of clearing your throat after forty cigarettes. Think Krysyghghghgh and you will have got the idea.
Anyway, it all sounds so excitingly primitive that living with Number Two Daughter will probably be a doddle by comparison. Obviously I am very pleased at this prospect, it is always exciting when the children decide to take a new turn in their adventures.
Since they are both ladies I don’t suppose there will be any unexpected grandchildren in the immediate future, but this is perfectly all right as I expect that Number One Daughter would be happy to share Ritalin Boy occasionally, if anybody ever asked. Not that I imagine anybody ever will. He is quite attention-consuming enough to take on a journey even when safely strapped into a car seat with a DVD, never mind through the untamed wilderness on the back of a horse.
Whilst my offspring and my new common-law-daughter-in-law were having adventures I have been busy having adventures of my own.
Mark went off to the farm and whilst he was gone I tried my hand at making an interesting creation called bannock. I have never made this before, but have bought it in Booths whilst on an Ethical Shopping trip, and liked it. Since it is three quid for a tiny loaf in Booths I thought I would try my hand at making some.
The first attempt at making something is always a bit tiresome, because you have got to follow the instructions. Once you have done it you know what is supposed to happen and you can do what you feel like. I followed the instructions carefully, except the ones for which I had better ideas, and after an hour and a half burping to itself in the oven, finally I had an enormous dollop of bannock.
Unfortunately it looks like nothing quite as much as a large cow pat, the sort you might get with early spring grass.
Apart from that it seems to taste quite all right. We have taken some to work with us, and on the whole I am pleased with the result.
It cant be that bad because half of it had been eaten before we even left.
This mid-afternoon picnic happened because of the arrival of our new lodger.
This was the other excitement in the day. We have got a lodger in our loft for the summer.
She is an old school friend of Number Two Daughter’s, and has come here to work, given Windermere’s seasonal excess of job vacancies and desperate shortage of anybody who can keep breathing for long enough to do them.
She arrived here at five, and by half past she had changed, hastily swallowed a cup of tea-with-bannock, and disappeared to serve dinners in the Chinese restaurant. She has several more interviews over the next couple of days, her plan being to get a day job as well.
I picked her up at the end of her night, and left her at home to puzzle whether or not she might manage to juggle a job in a restaurant, a job in an hotel, a job in a shop and a job in a garage.
It doesn’t sound as though we are likely to see very much of one another.
She will be exhausted by the time it is all over.
