Hot

It is late, and I know that I ought to start writing to you, but it is so hot that I can hardly be bothered.

It is extraordinarily hot, and heavy, and the air feels damp.

I think it is wonderful.

This, I think, is my very favourite sort of weather, although I am prepared to concede that it is probably more enjoyable if you are in the Lake District. I don’t suppose it is nearly so wonderful if you are living on the tenth floor of some litter-strewn urban nightmare where people go in the lifts for a wee. We have spent the day ambling peacefully around our sunny garden and in and out of our beautifully cool semi-underground stone house, and tomorrow, if the weather lasts that long, we think we will go and swim. I do not think that there is anywhere in the world as lovely as the Lake District on days when the sun is shining.

We heard briefly that Oliver is having a lovely time, he has been driving a quad bike with all of his friends in the trailer. They are swimming in the sea and having campfires and picnics on the beach. It sounds like a sort of modern day Famous Five except without the girl and the one who was what was called a tomboy when we were children. This was a nice thing to be in those days, and you did not need to take your children to the doctor for it.

I was very glad indeed of the sun, because after all of my intensive life-organisation, of course Lucy came home with a rucksack packed tightly with mud. When we got up this morning my domestic orderliness had evaporated. There were boots and towels and bits of tent everywhere, and a large pile of strongly-scented laundry occupying most of the kitchen floor.

I filled the washing machine three times, and the weather was so lovely that it all dried almost before the next load had finished.

Lucy stowed it gratefully back in her rucksack, because she is going away again tomorrow, this time to a festival not very far from home, called Kendal Calling.

I do not know why it is called that, because it is not in Kendal at all. It is on the other side of Shap fell, nearer to Penrith.

In between washing, I had a comprehensive Jobs List to occupy my day.

I have spent the last week making a list of irritating jobs. Every time I have noticed something tiresome that needs doing I have dived into the office and written it down on a notepad.

Somehow it is easier to do a job if it is on a list.

I spent today working my way through it.

They were the sort of jobs that do not have a sufficiently magnificent reward to make them urgently pressing to do, but are irritating enough to make life feel uncomfortable, like having sand in your flip flops.

I sewed on buttons and made appointments and bought toothpaste and rang the mortgage company. This bit took ages and meant I didn’t get round to cutting the grass, but the grass has not gone away so I shall do it tomorrow.

You can see from the picture what Mark has been doing. It isn’t finished yet, there is the ridge still to do.

I had to wait until it was almost dark to take the picture, because it was too sunny too see in the daylight.

Isn’t it wonderful?

LATER NOTE: It is thundery. We came home from work and sat at the open door in the hot darkness, looking out into the conservatory and watching the lightning sear across the night. We had a glass of wine, because we thought we ought to get into it quickly before Lucy finished the box, somehow wine just seems to disappear at the moment. Nobody is moving in the world.

It is still very hot.