Wet

I think it would be easier to write a diary if I had a more exciting life.

It has been the dreariest of dreary wet days. People have been promising me, with great anticipation, that we are expecting some wonderfully hot weather by the end of the week, but I am not convinced. Today has been cold, and the best thing that could be said about it is that the endless rain has been so persistent that it has helpfully sluiced all evidence of passing birds from the roof of the conservatory.

There was a lot of this. Next door has a bird table.

It was not endless rain, actually, that was a figure of speech meant to indicate that it has been a long-drawn-out, meteorologically tedious sort of day. In fact it has stopped raining now that I am on the taxi rank and unable to rush home and peg the sheets out to billow in the garden for a while.

I was soaked to the skin almost before the day had started, because I took the dogs for a gallop around the park. They galloped, not me, obviously. We took Pepper with us as well, because the human members of their family were busy clearing up after guests, and also because Roger Poopy will not walk past their back gate without stopping and whining piteously to be let in.

Pepper behaved rather well, actually. She did not go anywhere near the stream this morning. This might have been because of the rain, or it might have been because when she tried to leap out and leave her ball in it yesterday, Mark chucked her back in and told her that she was to go and get it. She was most indignant about this, and favoured him with a Hard Stare, but knew perfectly well what he wanted, and splashed crossly back for the ball.

She and Roger Poopy belted around in circles for ages, chasing one another in a savage-sounding growly sort of way, sending water up in a huge spray behind them. This stopped eventually when she ran round and round a tree with Roger chasing her, until unexpectedly he turned round and went the other way. This resulted in a collision, and both of them thinking they might sit down quietly for a little while.

By the time I got home I was very wet indeed, although not as wet as the dogs, who collapsed damply on to their cushion in front of the fire, and then stayed there for the rest of the day. I had to hoover round them.

Oliver and Mark were at work, obviously. They had gone off to do rural broadbanding today. Oliver likes this because it involves programming computers, and he is better at this than Mark, not least because he can type with all of his fingers. This is nine more than Mark can manage.

This gave me a peaceable bit of day in which to listen to my online story book and tidy up the house before it was time for me to rush off to work myself. It seemed to be a terrific mess. I don’t know how three people manage to leave so much dust and clutter all over the place.

I had lit the fire, partly to try and get the sheets dry, but mostly because even though it is July, the house was cold. I told myself that I wanted everywhere to feel warm and aired and friendly for when Oliver and Mark came home, but it was also because even though I was already wearing  an extra vest and a jumper, I was still shivering.

We had used all of the wood stack from by the fire, so I moved the conservatory wood pile into the house, and the yard wood pile into the conservatory. This operation meant that I got wet again.

The dogs lay unmoving in front of the fire despite having the occasional log dropped on their heads.

I splashed in and out like an Indian in the monsoon season, wearing my flip flops because my boots were drying over the fire. Then I put my pillowcase on my head and went to buy some vegetables, so perhaps it was more like being a Muslim in the monsoon season.

I left a pan of dinner on the stove for my menfolk and went out to work.

I did not take any photographs, because nothing interesting has happened to make an interesting picture, and you can’t see any stunning views in the Lake District at the moment because of the rain. You can have this picture that Number Two Daughter sent the other day. It was taken exactly nine years ago, and is of Mark with Ritalin Boy in their extreme youth.

Mark had hair in those days.