We had not been up very long this morning before we gave up and went back to bed.
We had had to get up rather earlier than we would have liked, because Lucy was off to Carlisle for her Krav Maga lesson. This is an instructor’s course, because her own instructor thought that she would be good at it, and it was her Christmas present.
Mark took her to the station in Kendal whilst I washed up and emptied the dogs. It was a frozen morning, white and still. The ground made small cracking noises as I walked, and not for the first time, I was monumentally grateful for my sheepskin boots. These, I would like to remind you, have changed my life. I have had warm feet ever since Number One Daughter bought them for me over a year ago, they are like nothing else I have ever owned. I can tell you that there is no need whatsoever to feel sorry for sheep in winter. They are clothed in bliss.
When Mark got home we had a short house meeting to consider what we should do next, which unanimously voted for more sleep instead of more coffee. We collapsed back into bed, where we stayed until the dogs thought that they would like to revisit the garden, at about lunchtime.
I think I have mentioned that I am currently resisting a sore throat, and over the last day or two it has been joined in its assault by the threat of a headache. I have not wished to entertain either of these, and so have stuffed myself full of soothing pharmaceuticals and ignored them.
To go to sleep again was absolute heaven.
I had the most peculiar dream in which there was a tiger in the garden which I would have liked to befriend, but was unable to do so because of my responsibilities towards children and domestic animals, all of which precluded my letting a tiger into the house. The tiger and I looked at one another for a long time. It killed a bird or two, and showed me its long white teeth. I wanted to invite it in very badly, but all the same there was a little bit of me that was secretly glad that I had a good excuse not to.
I woke up wondering what murky part of my subconscious had chosen a tiger to be its avatar. Mark said that it was probably the drugs.
I put some bread out for the birds, to apologise for the subconscious tiger. Mark and the dogs buzzed off to the farm, much to the dogs’ happiness, and I carried on with my back-to-school laundry project.
In the end I went to the station to collect Lucy, who had had the most wonderful time.
She has been learning the correct way to jab people in the eye, there are three ways and an optimum jab for every occasion. She has learned how to shift her weight in order to most effectively kick somebody in the groin, and tomorrow she is teaching her first lesson.
Her knuckles are swollen and bleeding from punching people, and somebody else seems to have punched her on the nose. She said that this was because she misjudged her midline, which I imagine translates as ‘forgot her nose was in the way’.
She has still got three more days to go. She is going to look enchanting when she gets back to school and explains to the head of sixth form that she has been bare-knuckle fighting.
She was quite proud of herself for negotiating the train on her own all the way to Carlisle. There had been a scary Platform Challenge, and she had been obliged to follow some conveniently situated signs, but on the whole she had managed all right, which she thought was a marvellous achievement.
She was so tired that she ate half a tray of spring rolls and went to bed. She was asleep by quarter to seven.
Mark went to practice his typing skills on the taxi rank, and I went swimming.
Mark had been splitting logs and did not feel any need for further exercise.
I thought it was a joy.
I have not been to the WholePerson LoveMyBodyMindfulness Health Spa for ages, not since we decided that we were no longer wealthy enough to sustain the membership fees: and now Number One Daughter has paid them as a Christmas present, not for six weeks as I originally thought, but for three whole months, which will take us through to the springtime when we might be earning some money.
I have become very unfit indeed.
All the same, I splashed up and down the pool, in true old-lady walrus style, until my heart thundered in my ears and my muscles ached. This did not take very long. Completing my fifty five lengths, on the other hand, took ages.
Afterwards I felt splendid, if you discount the sore throat and headache. It is lovely to be exercised and steamed and scrubbed and scented, and I did not mind coming to work in the least.
Perhaps my tiger is a sleek fit inner self.
It is more likely to be the drugs really.
