If I had any self-knowledge at all I would never plan to do anything on the day after we get back from taking Oliver back to school.
I have rushed about for the whole day and I was still late for work.
The day started by rushing about hunting for, and then parcelling up, the things that he had forgotten. I had just trussed it up into a neat little parcel when the computer pinged, and it was an email from Oliver telling me about some more things he had forgotten, so I had to unwrap it all and start again.
After that I had to go out to the camper van to get the things that we had forgotten ourselves. I had left my car parked there, because parking is an eternal challenge in Windermere. Now I needed to move the car, and then move the camper van into the space, and then bring my car back home. This turned into a complicated interlude involving jumping in and out of cars and shunting them about as quickly as I could before anybody else could dive into the space.
I had left the remains of the lemon chicken in the camper van, which omission I had discovered when it came to making Mark’s sandwiches to go to work. Fortunately we still had some leftovers from our reckless House of Bruar adventure, and so he had a rather splendid lunch of smoked beef sandwiches with home made mayonnaise and fresh tomatoes.
I was quite struck, on my visit to their food hall, by how many of their splendid delicacies we make ourselves at home anyway. The chief difference is that theirs are thoughtfully packaged and magnificently presented. I was jolly impressed with some beautiful crystallised orange slices, but knew, regretfully, that no matter how hard I tried, mine would finish up looking an uneven sludge colour with curled edges.
I might make some anyway. I need to dry some of the apples and so could have a bash at other fruit as well.
Dried fruit is nice to have for picnics, and can be done again now that we are back in the season of the fire being lit all day long. Also I should perhaps make some yoghurt. I like it but can’t do it in summer because of not having a hot place for it to set.
Having dealt with forgotten things, there was also a stack of washing as high as the top of the machine. This was all of our going away clothes, and a pile of sheets.
I pegged the first lot in the garden and managed to drag it back in later just before it rained. I was pleased with this small victory, because it was quite a bit drier than when I put it there, although it did mean that I had to do the whole hanging up process all over again, this time over the top of the stove.
Whilst faffing about with the washing I thought I would mop up a small puddle of water in the conservatory that seemed to have leaked from one of the flower beds.
When I pulled up the lino there was lots of it, in a squelchy sub-lino pool.
I had a terrible shock. Of course we have underfloor heating in the conservatory, and of course the pool was directly over the top of the buried bit where the pipes join one another.
I dragged all the lino back out of the way and blotted it all up before I took the dogs out.
When I came back I hauled the rest of the lino out. It did not matter about doing this. We do not actually want to have lino in the conservatory. It is a temporary measure, left over from the camper van bathroom, until we can afford tiles, which we can’t until the Peppers win the lottery.
To my horror, there was another pool.
This was not over the top of the buried pipe-joint. This was creeping out from underneath the tomato beds.
I dragged the beds out to see if they might be leaking, which they weren’t.
I left the pool there whilst I refilled the tea bags, and when I came back out it had practically gone, evaporated away with the warmth of the floor.
I was mystified.
Eventually I realised that the water in the conservatory had been condensating on the wall behind the flower beds and running down. The water that did not get trapped underneath the lino evaporated back into the air to provide a small tropical atmosphere in our very home. The water that leaked underneath the lino had got stuck there, and there it remained, in a festering puddle.
I did not put the lino back, but left it for Mark to contemplate when he got home.
I had made a massive mess in the conservatory by then, which did not matter because my job of the day was to plant the hyacinth bulbs. I should have done this ages ago but had a hyacinth bulb failure, by which I mean I put them in a box under the chair and then completely forgot about their existence.
I love hyacinths, and one of the finest moments of the year is when I can walk into the house and the air is filled with their beautiful scent.
There are hyacinth bulbs in the bed already, but I had been saving some more, and I dug out some farmyard compost and filled every pot and spare bowl that I had.
This made a huge mess as well, but a happiness awaits me in the spring.
By the time I had swept up and mopped up again I was late for work. I mopped the floor behind myself as I went out. This seemed like a smugly brilliant idea. It was only spoiled by getting out and discovering that I had forgotten my car keys, so I had to hop back across the newly cleaned floor anyway.
Mark says that tiling the floor will probably sort the problem out, because we only get puddles underneath the lino. The rest just evaporates.
Maybe next year.
Have another picture of Scotland.
NOTE: Oliver if you are reading this I forgot to put a note in the parcel today. Also I have still forgotten your woolly hat and will send it probably tomorrow if I remember.
