I got all of my washing dry in the garden today.
Never let it be said that these pages are not full of thrilling revelations.
I was jolly pleased about it, anyway, it was two whole loads and some boiled pillows.
The pillows have had to go over the fire this evening to carry on drying, because they are still a little tiny bit damp, but nothing to speak of.
It has been dry and sunny.
Not that this is much help at this stage of the game. Our lawn is so wet that it is no better than Mark’s field, and when I came in I realised too late that my flip-flops had became caked with mud, much of which had removed itself on to the carpet. I had to try and scrape it off, without even the perverse satisfaction of blaming the dogs.
It was so clement that I refilled the log stack around the stove and tidied up the shed. Mark usually does this, because I am a girl and not meant for the sort of heavy labour which might leave dirt down my fingernails. However, he was busy at the farm, and it is good if we can bring logs in every day, because they burn best if they are dry. Also I do not mind doing things like that when it is not raining, so I achieved a pleasing feeling of virtue at the cost of very little effort.
When the lodger came home for her afternoon break I was busy ironing sheets with the big rotary iron. This was also for the reason described on the last line of the previous paragraph. I sprayed them with rose water scent and made them all crisp and flat and smooth, and lectured the lodger about how to be a perfect housewife.
She was occupied in cooking herself a pan of things to be ladled into tubs and squirrelled away for the weekend, when everybody in Windermere is too busy to feed themselves properly.
I did not want her to make mistakes, so I was helpful with that as well, explaining kindly to her the things that she was doing wrong and how she could make her cooking much better.
She started off by saying that she liked her cooking the way it was, but in the end she stopped making a fuss and added half a bottle of red wine and some cream, as instructed, which I assured her would improve things no end.
I told her lots about how to do cooking properly, and she listened for a while until eventually she made some excuse about being late for work and sloped off out again. She must have been in a hurry, because she completely forgot to wash the pots up, so I did it, virtuously.
I almost phoned some mortgage companies, but the thought made me feel so gloomy that I decided not to bother. Instead I wrapped up the things Lucy had forgotten and had a stroll out to the post office in the sunshine.
Mark came home after that, he has started loading one of his trailers to park next to the camper van.
The picture is above.
I have tried so hard to become an acceptable member of the middle classes.
I wonder if the National Park Authority will notice. I expect it will fit in nicely with an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which of course this is.
Mark says that it will be fine, it will be covered with a sheet and underneath his field shelter anyway, behind a wall of cut logs.
I am going to have to paint some cows on things in order that they look inconspicuous.
Nobody will see a thing.
