I have had such a lovely day.
The sun has shone, and it has been warm. I can tell you here that the rubbish about ne’er casting a clout must have been written before Global Warming, because I have cast off lots of clouts. I am not wearing a vest, and on top of my shirt there is only one single jersey. Even that jersey is a sleeveless affair, and I took it off whilst I was in the house. I am practically undressed.
I know that this is supposed to make me concerned about the well-being of the planet, and guilty about our wicked carbon footprinty profligacy. I know that it is dreadful about all of the extinct beetles, and awful for the poor homeless penguins…but it is so joyously, blissfully warm and bright that today I am determinedly not thinking about those things at all.
Today I have left all of the windows and doors wide open, and the cool spring air has washed through the dusty, wintry house like a spring tide over an abandoned picnic. I can practically see the black mouldy patches on the windowsills shrivelling up in the sunlight whilst the crocuses in the garden are bursting into exuberant life.
We got up early, and Mark buzzed off to collect Lucy, which left me with a whole day to bask in the sunshine doing warm things. Of course I did not actually sit in the sunshine, that would have required a garden for a start, and as you will remember, ours has had a series of construction-related misfortunes lately.
I compromised by throwing the doors open in a dramatic fine weather gesture, which would have worked better if performed by Audrey Hepburn in a sultry vine-laden African villa at dawn, but which felt rather splendid even on a building site at half past ten. I dragged the extension lead down the path and hoovered my taxi out.
This was the usual repellent job, leading to the discovery of the odd trace of leftover vomit, and one or two ancient scars which are probably encrusted vomit from previous idiots. I hoovered it all out and gave it a cursory wipe, but I don’t sit in the back, so I don’t care very much now that it smells all right again.
I squirted it all with the wonderful perfume that we bought from the Disneyland Hotel, and which always makes me long, passionately and hopefully, for holidays. I would like to go on holiday very much. It is lovely to think that Our Day Will Come, and in the meantime the car smells excitingly promising.
It is nice to have a clean car. I restocked the peppermints and went to the library to fill the boot with a choice of wonderful new books to read. This was a happy moment. I drifted across the paths in the glorious sunshine breathing in the springtime smells of new growth and damp earth. I had an armful of unread books, and a clean taxi to read them in. I did not think I could possibly want any more from life.
Apart from a holiday, obviously, and a new conservatory and somebody else to clean the bathroom, and quite a bit more cash and a haircut and to be naturally thin. Apart from those things.
I ironed Oliver’s school uniform, because he has got to go back to school on Sunday. This is tiresomely sad, because it means the only day that we all get together is Saturday, which is when we have all got to go to work. This even includes Lucy. Her Door Supervisor’s Licence has arrived, and she is going to spend her weekend standing on the nightclub doors, checking passports and asking unsuitably youthful-looking aspirants what their birth sign is. This is what bouncers do when they think that somebody has borrowed their cousin’s ID and is only pretending to be eighteen
I was just finishing packing our picnic bags when Mark and Lucy reappeared, having had a speedy and uneventful drive home. Lucy has got another driving test soon, it is not this Monday but the one after. She is going to spend the week practising, which is frustrating, because in my perfect world I would really like Mark to build the conservatory, and make our back garden beautiful again, but these things happen. I shall work harder on my patience.
Have a picture of the front garden.
