After Mark had gone to work this morning I crawled back into bed.
I seem to be getting ridiculously tired at the moment. Elspeth said that this was probably because of being That Certain Age, and bought me some rejuvenating tablets. It is nice to have friends. Only a best friend of thirty years’ standing would consider giving such a lovely and useful present.
They are enormous, so they must have a lot of rejuvenating chemicals. Mark suggested that perhaps they were not intended to be swallowed, but I have ignored him, with the dignity that is one of the better things about being That Certain Age.
So far I have taken two. Obviously I am not yet fully rejuvenated, otherwise I would not have needed to go back to bed, but there are lots of them left, so there is plenty of time. I shall let you know.
I still managed to be up before the children. They are not enthusiastic early risers.
After that I have had another day of organising things. I have been trying to set my life in order lately, because I like it best when I can open cupboards without everything falling on my head. Also I am trying to empty tiresome things out of my life, in order that I can sail through my days in a mood of unassailed tranquillity, and hence become a person of sweetness and loveliness to everybody I meet.
I am not terribly lovely at the moment, because of being That Certain Age and tired and Hot Flushed all of the time.
Today’s organising involved the camper van.
This was mostly inspired by having a massive bag of stuff to go back into it.
When we got out of it after the last time I stripped it of all dirty linens. This was mostly everybody’s bedclothes and towels, but also all of the rest of the domestic detritus, like tea towels and swimming costumes and dishcloths and aprons, and the whole lot filled a massive sack.
Once suitably laundered and dried to airy-freshness in the garden, it was folded up and returned to its sack, where it has squatted ever since, dumped in the corner of the living room, on top of the children’s school stuff.
The resulting pile was so enormous that it made it difficult to drag the hoover out of the cupboard at the back.
The consequence of this was initially that I could not be bothered to hoover, because it was too difficult: and then when everywhere became too gritty to be ignored, I could not be bothered to put the hoover away afterwards. The hoover makes a rubbish living-room ornament.
This did nothing for my mood of unassailed tranquillity. It is tiresome to trip over a hoover in the dark.
Today I resolved to remedy this. I lugged the bag across the street to the camper van, where I unfolded all of the linen and remade the beds.
Cabin beds are extraordinarily difficult to make, especially when one has got a home-modified mattress. I tugged and pulled and in the end dragged the whole mattress out of its hole, made it up on the floor, and then shoved it back.
This turned out to be a rubbish idea really, because the resulting crumpled mess was not in the least reminiscent of the beautiful-hotel-bedroom look to which I aspire in my domestic activities, but at least the sheets were on, and I straightened them and tucked them as well as I could so that in the end it did not look too bad.
Making the children’s bunk beds was no easier, not least because they are five feet in the air, and I was obliged to balance on the edge of our own bed. After some time of this I resolved to be in no great hurry to change their sheets again for a while.
I can think this, because I know that they don’t care in the least, but of course I will never be able to overcome my tendency towards OCD sufficiently to bear the thought of Oliver’s bed being made up with feet-grubby sheets, even if he is not underneath them but asleep in his dorm at school.
In the end the beds were all satisfactorily smoothed and lavender-scented, and I turned my attention to the kitchen cupboards. Mark is making drawers in the camper van kitchen, but has not yet got around to it, even though I have explained that he would do it if he truly loved me. He has done one, which is a start, and actually I really like it, it works a lot better than the shop-bought ones that we have in the kitchen at home. It is smooth and heavy and clicks shut satisfyingly.
It was full of all sorts of stuff. Because it was the only drawer I had been chucking everything in it, and clothes pegs were rattling about in saucepans, squished up to bags of raisins and spare toothpicks and cheese graters and similar items of potential usefulness.
I tidied it up.
I organised the swimming kit, and the ice-skating bags, and the first-aid box.
I brought lots of stuff back to the house that I thought we would not use any more. This included things like blankets for wrapping a baby, which I had inexplicably kept even though Oliver is almost thirteen, and tiny socks with Donald Duck on them, and yet another stray dummy.
I almost put it all usefully in the kitchen drawers at home, but remembered at the last minute that it was junk, and put it in the dustbin instead.
Then I put the hoover away.
The children were continuing with their decorating project, and actually it is all coming along rather splendidly. Lucy’s bedroom is now mostly lavender, including some of the carpet. I am so very impressed with them, they have been alternately painting and practising Oliver’s maths.
The scholarship exam is getting closer and closer.
I hope it will be all right.
