I have got to keep reminding myself how badly we needed the rain.
I am trying very hard to look on the bright side and find something to be Pollyanna about, but even with the lovely-fresh-green-leaves-and-damp-smelling-grass-silver-lining it is still difficult not to scowl every time I look at the horrible grey sky. I have been enjoying the unexpected Lake District summer very much, and do not want it to be over. Even if we have to accept becoming a desiccated wilderness it would be lovely to sit in the garden every day.
I do hope it is because of Global Warming and will carry on every year.
I have reluctantly put my jersey and some leggings back on to come out to work, but might have to go back later for my sheepskin boots. When it is warmer and not raining we all get out of our taxis and talk to one another in quiet moments at night. I like this. It is easy to forget that the other taxi drivers are funny and entertaining and nice. In the winter you only think of them in terms of how well they can manage reverse parking into tiny spaces.
We have all been at home together today, which was rather splendid, apart from Mrs. Number Two Daughter, who had gone to visit some friends. We had a house meeting over coffee and jam sandwiches.
It is nice to have jam again, and there should be lots this year, maybe even enough to last right through, because of the wonderful globally warmed grapes. I am going to make jelly with these, because grape jelly is a luxurious joy, and the wine we made the last time we had a decent summer was truly rubbish.
Anyway, we have started eating the first jam already, as you do when something is a novelty, we will be sick of it in a day or two. It was black currant, and is fine apart from one lot of about four jars, which have not boiled for quite long enough and will have to be done again. I don’t mind this, it was my own fault for trying to hurry up because I had got fed up of being sticky, and I can do them properly on Monday.
The house meeting was to consider what we were going to do over the next few weeks.
I had quite wanted to go to London, and have a small holiday in the camper van. We have got to take Oliver to the airport in a couple of weeks, and I quite liked the idea of going down all together and spending a week milling around the south. We could have gone to see Number One Daughter, and I have looked longingly at tickets for Harry Potter at the theatre in London.
It turned out that we couldn’t afford tickets for Harry Potter in London, not least because the camper van is not allowed into London and we would have had to stay in an hotel. This would have been one of the things that I liked best, especially with nice restaurants attached, but in the end I have had to accept my impecunious lot and hope that it goes on tour eventually. Harry Potter on tour, that is, not the nice hotel with restaurants, we have already got those. If it comes to Manchester we could stay in the Midland which is in any case the nicest place in the world and would save the anxiety of some London hotel with an unpredictable breakfast.
The children did not want to go to London and see Harry Potter. It turns out that neither of them like it as much as I do. Also they do not care about going to look at Hampton Court, where I have never been but would like to visit, nor about the Planetarium, or the new dinosaur theme park that has opened somewhere in the south, so they might just as well stay at home and do their homework.
This at least has the massive advantage of being cheap.
Number Two Daughter suggested that instead of going away we could consider some days out locally, and actually that sounded like a good idea.
The holiday seems to be puffing past us jolly quickly, only a few weeks ago it stretched ahead of us for ever and ever, and suddenly we have got to be quick before we run out of time.
I had better start sewing name labels on to socks.
The picture has been added twice. This will mean that everybody can see it. If I only put it on once then some people don’t. I imagine that this means I have pressed the wrong button somewhere.
