I woke up this morning from a terrible dream, in which I was trying to get to the station to meet somebody, but my taxi would only go backwards.
It was going backwards faster and faster, and would not be turned off. I was steering it by looking into the side mirrors, and trying to get it to stall, but it wouldn’t.
I was pleased to wake up.
I have had this sort of dream quite a lot lately. Mark thinks that it is anxiety, and it might be. I am not an especially anxious person, but sometimes things are a bit worrying.
We talked over coffee about what might be worrying me.
We have just had the results of the test, from when Mark was wired up to a machine and looked at, and it thinks that he has got a faulty valve in his heart. He has got to go for a scan in Lancaster in a few weeks.
It is the day after I have got to join the prison service, so I won’t be able to go with him.
We decided that really this was nothing to worry about. I have looked it up on the mighty Internet, and discovered that it is only a little tiny bit faulty,
It is not a problem until his feet swell up and he gets pains in his chest. At the moment he just gets a bit breathless and dizzy when he tries to run up hills.
This is not terribly serious, and means that he has got a long way to go before the hospital thinks that it is worth replacing it.
I am entirely in accord with this policy. It is exactly the way in which we run the taxis, in that we thrash them to the verge of extinction, and then Mark summons them, like Lazarus, back to the point where customers won’t complain any more. Minor issues, like the fan heater in his car, or the annoying twinge in a kneecap, can be neglected for ever, or at least until that longed-for day when we have not got anything much else that we need to do.
We decided that we would deal with the heart valve replacement issue by leaving it as long as possible, preferably until the children have finished school, and by saving up in the meantime so that we will be able to afford the two months compulsory holiday from work that goes with it.
This seemed to us to be an entirely acceptable solution, and we got up feeling quite cheerful.
We discovered that the monsoon season is upon us.
The skies were grey, and rain was lashing down and bouncing off the path.
This was tiresome, because we had got lots of things that we wanted to do in the garden.
It was only wet, not especially cold, so we did them anyway.
Mark laid the floor for the outside loo. This is called his Thinking Shed. We have not had a Thinking Shed since we were in France, and we are looking forward to it. It took ages after that to get used to a bathroom and not to be absolutely repelled at the idea of pooing in the house.
He concreted it and stuck tiles on the top. He had to keep it well covered up with plastic all the time, because of the rain.
I was doing plants.
I went to the ironmonger’s for some hanging basket liners. I have never done this before. Usually I make my own with moss, but I thought that this year I would have a go at some Conspicuous Consumption and see if it made life easier, which it did, lots.
The lady at the ironmonger’s said with a sniff that nobody else in Windermere was doing their hanging baskets today.
I planted some more things into the front garden and filled the big plant pots. I planted bulbs everywhere, which is why I wanted the liners for the hanging baskets. I have filled them with daffodils and hyacinths and crocuses and jasmine, and added some nasturtium seeds for their glorious flame-coloured trailing flowers at the end of the year.
I shall have to be careful that they don’t get frosted. They will have to go into the shed when we have got one again.
I shovelled compost and tugged plants out and shoved the wheelbarrow up the hill, until I was dripping with black mud and the rain was running down my ears and under my collar.
It did not matter. We had achieved lots of exciting things.
Finally, we staggered back into the house and peeled off our soaking clothes.
We had a restorative glass of Bailey’s Irish Cream, even though it was four o’clock in the afternoon, and went for a shower.
We slept until it was time to go to work.
Windermere is starting to get a bit flooded.
It is going to be a very wet weekend.
I haven’t taken a picture. Have a picture of the corner of our field.
