I am very pleased to tell you that today I am unexpectedly feeling better than I have done for some time.
I have been feeling quite low-spirited lately. You might possibly have noticed this. I had mislaid much of my joy for life, and things have been a bit of a dreary trudge over the recent weeks.
This afternoon, almost out of the blue, I stopped wanting to burst into tears and thought that maybe things might not be so terrible. It might even be, I thought, that I will be able to cope with life after all.
It was like the moment first thing in the morning, when you open the curtains just a little crack, to see what the weather is doing, and a beam of sunlight leaps excitedly through it and pokes you in the eye.
It is a fragile all-rightness, not yet fully formed, and I am holding on to it as carefully as I can. It feels a bit like building one of those blown-glass animals, all slender legs and delicate features. It still might suddenly leap from my grasp and shatter into a million lethal fragments.
All the same, it is lovely to have at the moment. I have rooted through my overflowing handbag of life, and found my rose-coloured spectacles again.
Today I am not agonising over the secret fear that somehow we are going to collapse into bankrupt ignominy and disgrace.
I do not any longer feel as though some unspecified horrible disaster is dangling ominously above our hapless heads, waiting for the moment to plummet and crush us to our doom.
I have become newly optimistic for the world. Things might be a bit difficult at the moment, but of course we will just bash our way through them. We always do.
Several things have brought about this happy relief, mostly the kindness of other people. We had a lovely letter this morning from the music teacher at Aysgarth, Oliver’s prep school, just wondering how he was getting on at Gordonstoun, and asking to be remembered to him.
The second kindness came in the form of a message from another teacher, this one from Lucy’s old school, wondering if he might send her a moving in present for her new house. I was so touched by this generosity that I almost cried again, although I didn’t, because I have been quite tearful enough lately, and am getting a bit sick of myself.
The third thing was my mother digging through her store cupboards and discovering not only a spare iron, but also piles of useful linens that could be used to furnish Lucy’s bed in her new house. This was a massive relief, because it is something else that I can cross off my colossal list of Impossible Things To Be Achieved Before Wednesday.
They are, as she said, old and a bit faded and worn, but it doesn’t matter even if they are. She can use them for now, and then in a couple of months we can all give her sheets and duvet covers for Christmas, after which she will have a huge quantity of handy dusters.
We even have an ironing board. One of our neighbours has misfortunately and unjustly been sent to prison. He has not been allowed to take his ironing board with him, and so Mark brought it home this afternoon. This is lovely for us although of course very horrible for him.
Things are looking a bit less frightening all the time.
Today I do not feel a desperate longing to go and hide in some quiet dark place. The relief is huge.
I celebrated by doing some cleaning. Mark cleaned the bathroom and I took all of the china off the kitchen dresser and washed it all in hot soapy water. We scrubbed and hoovered and polished and rinsed until everywhere felt fresh and all right again.
It is much easier to feel happy in a clean house.
Mark came downstairs and rubbed the dresser with beeswax polish until it shone. We took everything off all of the shelves and washed the dust away so that everything was fresh and brightly coloured again.
Even Lucy came and helped. She took everything off the bottom shelves of the dresser and washed it all. We keep the alcohol there, and she inspected it with interest in case there was anything she might need to take with her, although fortunately there wasn’t. There was still some grape rum, and even a bottle of Windermere Wine, made from the year before’s grapes, but we put that back for a desperate emergency.
When we have finished work tonight we have got a gleaming clean house to come back to.
Things are getting better.
