I am missing the children.
I am not exactly sure why this is, or what part of them I am missing. It is most certainly not the piles of washing on their bedroom floors or the empty yoghurt pots under their desks.
It probably isn’t their company either, since they never really appeared downstairs unless they were hungry or for some reason the wifi had gone off.
All the same I found myself thinking about them this afternoon. This was partly because the writer of the musical Hamilton has made an appearance on Desert Island Discs today, and Radio Four has been trailing it like mad all week.
Regular bursts of Hamilton, which has been the children’s favourite music for ages, has served as a continual reminder of the peculiar tranquillity of the house at the moment. I indulged in a little nostalgia for our departed family by putting it on Spotify whilst I was cooking this afternoon.
Mark was in the yard cutting firewood. I have been encouraging him to do this for some time, not because we have been especially cold, but because the pile of not-yet-sawn firewood has been getting larger for some time now, and keeps catching on the washing. There was a splinter in a sheet the other day, and some grubby green smears, which made me cross, I will never be middle class at this rate. I bet the Queen does not have to shake firewood spiders out of her pillowcases when she is making the beds.
Talking of washing, I might have helped to solve my problem of soggy washing all over the place today.
When I took today’s load out I thought how heavy and wet it still was. Mark was out with the dogs, but I am quite technically minded for a girl, and so I took the bottom panel off the washing machine, spread one of the dog towels underneath it, and took the filter out.
Inside it were some mangled bits of bank card.
It is ages since I lost my bank card, and due to my enthusiastic spending habits, obviously it has long been replaced. I never discovered where the old one went, until now.
I know it was mine because the only legible bit quite clearly had my name on it. I could not even blame Mark.
Mark said afterwards that it must have been stuck between the drum and some other bit and just made its way down into the filter.
I hope it helps, because the washing was rained back indoors again today, and I am fed up of trying to dry sodden washing in the living room without a fire.
We are still speculating about the conservatory developments, and today Mark rang my brother to see how much it might cost to take the back of the house away and have a beautifully light and spacious opening into the conservatory instead of two doors with an irritating wall between them.
My brother, who is a builder, agreed that it was an exciting and magnificent idea, and then told us how long it would take and how much it might cost to do it.
We thought perhaps it might have to wait until we win the lottery, or at least until the weather warms up.
Part of the problem is that Mark has got about two hours every week spare in between his existing jobs. That is not enough time to take the back of the house away, certainly not before Christmas.
If he carried on with driving a taxi and installing rural broadband we might have enough money to do it before next Christmas, but not enough time.
We contemplated all of our other options, which we have been doing every day this week without conclusion.
I think the back of the house might have to stay where it is for now.
Mark took the picture when we were in the south this week. It is still green down there.
Maybe we should just emigrate.
