I have been reminded that somebody cares.
Obviously it was me, just so you know.
All the same, something splendid happened to me today.
I was running out of bread flour, and I remembered that I had put some away during the more affluent summer months, carefully hoarded for winter.
I went upstairs to dig it out from its dark hiding place underneath the wardrobe. It had been stuffed into this secret cavern so that I would not notice that I had it. That way I would not accidentally use it in October or something, which is the time when things have just started to get leaner, but are not really at crisis point. It is not a good idea to use up all of your winter stores during your first fortnight of belt-tightening.
Beside the flour I discovered all sorts of buried treasures.
Somebody had cared enough about my winter worries to build a little store of some of the more troubling absences.
There were costly but important luxuries, like chocolate spread and tomato sauce. There were small sacks of important staples, like rice and flour, and things like coconut milk which I use a lot, but might decide not to replace once the going got tough.
Better still, in the box beside it there was toothpaste, and soap powder, and a couple of extra-nice scented candles, saved for a forlorn moment when I might need cheering up, and best of all, a bar of my favourite Chanel soap. We have been so broke this year that I have not used this at all, and I held it to my nose for a lovely fragrance of half-forgotten hedonism, before squirrelling it away again. This was because I do not need cheering up very much at the moment, and there might come a day when I badly need something lovely to happen to me.
There was even a small supply of headache tablets. I took these downstairs. It is always the season for headache tablets
I felt so gloriously awash with domestic abundance that I even donated some coffee and tomato sauce to the small supply of necessities set aside for Lucy to take home with her.
She was going back today.
Mark took her car to fuel it up. I stayed in the kitchen to organise some long-distance nurturing.
Lucy is a perfectly adequate cook herself, except that she has got both a full time job and a degree course to manage. This is on top of the usual teenage issues of deciding on what to spend her very limited budget, whether she is a boy or a girl, and which generation to blame for Global Warming. I am pleased to note that the conclusions she has reached all meet with my approval and seem to indicate a degree of normality, especially since the first answer is mostly ‘wine’.
She sat and talked to me whilst I cooked. She was occupied by her policing homework, and we worked our way through the list of questions together. It would appear that it is perfectly possible to be guilty of assault without touching somebody at all, or even speaking to them or taking much notice of them. If you look at them, and they are frightened of you, that is enough.
I think that this is mental, and if you are frightened of people who walking past you and laughing, after which you accuse them of assault, which is what happened in the example in the law textbook, then you need to get out more. Or no. Actually you need to stay in and leave the rest of us in peace.
I would be a rubbish policeman. I have mentally crossed it off the list of things that I might do when I grow up.
I made mayonnaise and iced buns and baked some potatoes for her to take home. I had cooked a chicken and some sausages and somebody had left an unopened bag of chocolate peanuts in the taxi. These were from the expensive sweetie shop in Bowness, so she took those for her journey home.
There was a bag of chocolate coated cinder toffee as well, but it had been opened. We did not like the idea of eating sweets that might have been touched by somebody else, you never know who might have Corona Virus, or not washed their hands after the bathroom, so we have been feeding this to the dogs. They are not worried about germs, and are very pleased indeed.
We waved her goodbye, sadly, and went to get ready for work, which is where we are now. The exciting weatheriness of last night has blown itself out, and the night is quiet.
It has been lovely to have both children at home.
Spring is on its way.
