Brave

We have managed to have the busiest of busy days.

It has been ace.

Mark has had some rural broadband money, which meant that we did not have to go and sit on the taxi rank and wait for customers who are not going to come. We have to do this when things are bad, because we need to make whatever tiny wisps of hay we can if there is even the smallest ray of sunshine poking through the clouds. Ten pounds at the end of a night is rubbish, but it is better than nothing.

Being at work on very quiet nights, like Tuesdays in September, is tiresome but not awful, because really we do not mind being at work, and actually I like it most of all when there are no customers. Customers interrupt my book and ask stupid questions. It is splendid to be sitting comfortably with a cup of chai and some home made biscuits and a good book, and the virtuous knowledge that one is Doing One’s Very Best To Support The Family.

None of this mattered today. We spent all of the day pottering contentedly about the house and garden, and we did not need to stop until it went dark.

It was brilliant.

I made mayonnaise, and then  some geranium flavoured soap, and then I started to process the grapes.

So far I have done ten pounds, and it hasn’t even made a dent on the grapevine. You can’t even tell that some grapes have gone. There are dozens and dozens of heavy, pendulous clusters of them, all along the garden wall.

I have stewed two pans full and added a couple of apples for pectin. I will strain these and make them into jelly tomorrow.

I put three pounds into Kilner jars and added sugar and a very great deal of white rum. This will have to stay there and soak for ages. When it has all blended nicely together we will drink the liquid and put the pulp into the mince pie mixture.

I have got no idea what this will taste like. I am working on the assumption that rum and raisin is a good combination, so therefore rum and grapes must be perfectly acceptable as well. The sugar is by way of a guarantee. Everything is nice with half a bag of added sugar.

Whilst I was doing all of this, Mark was risking life and limb in the garden.

He needed to fix the guttering, but we had decided that scaffolding came into the category of  ‘reckless extravagance’.

He had got to get up there somehow. He has been planning it for ages. Today he laid out three of Ted’s ladders and two of the next door neighbour’s ladders in a long line in the garden, and tied them all together.

The next door neighbour’s ladders live here with such commitment that the neighbour popped round last week to ask if he could borrow them back for an hour or two. He brought them back afterwards and said thank you. He is the loveliest of gentle souls and deserves better neighbours.

I came out and helped a bit, but it was all a bit difficult because of needing to understand which way one end of the ladder would go when you waggled the other end, and eventually Mark said that I was not much good and sent me back indoors.

He said to stay there in case anything or anybody dropped on my head.

In the end he had a long, scary tower of wobbly ladders with baler twine weaving in and out of them. They did not fit together very well because they were all different sizes, but he thought that they would do the job.

He leaned this against the side of the house. It reached all of the way up to the roof.

He climbed up it.

This was really brave. I know it was dangerous because when he came back down he was just a little bit pale and a very lot shaky. Mark is a recklessly brave type, and he does not usually mind doing exciting things

He replaced the gutters and the downspout.

When he came down he was exhilarated in the way of somebody who has stared into the face of death and laughed.

He did not want to go to work. We opened a bottle of wine by way of celebrating a continuing life.

I think that he is very brave indeed.

We have got new gutters. Now we can get on with the conservatory.