The day has been wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
Wrongetty wrong wrong.
Lucy used to say this when she was little, and cross with us for some parental misdemeanour, and it has stuck.
The day started wrongly, and it has taken me almost all the rest of the day to get it to go right again.
As I think I told you, I left my taxi in Kendal after work last night.
Obviously this morning I had to go and get it again.
I did not want to use public transport. Quite apart from the dreadfulness of having to wear a mask all the way to Kendal, there are not many trains at the moment, and the buses do not have a first class section. I think I have mentioned this before. They do not have anybody to serve drinks, there is no loo, and sometimes the people who use them smell peculiar.
I know this because people get in taxis to go up to the bus station sometimes.
Somebody once said that if public transport does not make you ambitious to succeed in life, nothing will.
I am in agreement.
Mark was going to work in the other direction, but fortunately, first thing this morning the Peppers were taking their motorbike in to Kendal for a service.
Do not get excited. I did not go on the motorbike.
I have just been struck with a vision of the three of us on their motorbike, perhaps with me in a sidecar with goggles.
Definitely not.
The last time I was on a motorbike was in India, with Mark, Oliver and Lucy all on it as well. We did not have any crash helmets and it was a bit awkward to transport the large garden chairs that we had bought, but it was an adventure.
It was rather lovely, actually, if potentially rather dangerous. We were not at all cold, even though we were all wearing shorts and flip flops, and the scents of the frangipani and jasmine floated around us and mingled with India’s other inevitable smells, which are exhaust fumes and poo. I would like to do it again.
I wish the Peppers would win the lottery.
Anyway, half of the Peppers rode the motorbike, and I went in the car, sedately, with the other half, and when we got there we were warm but the motorbike contingent was practically frozen to the handlebars.
Motorbikes obviously work better in India.
I left the Peppers to faff about with their motorbike and trotted across to pick up the taxi, which had finally passed its MOT. Mark had telephoned the garage and been cross, and I think they might have regretted their unhelpful conduct of the day before, because I was in and out in less than a minute, clutching a shiny new MOT in my hand.
The thing was that when I got home it was ten o’clock, and I had done almost nothing. Mark had taken the dogs out for a quick empty, which they had declined to do, being not their usual walk or habitual morning routine, so they were still full and fidgeting about.
Worse, Mark had helpfully done some of my morning jobs before he left. I would not have been pleased if he had not, because it was things like washing up his breakfast pots, but he had buzzed off in a hurry, and the house smelled of greasy bacon, and I could not work out what he had done and what he had not done. In consequence, all of my nice safe morning routine was upside down.
I tried ineffectually to make a proper start to the day, but it did not work. I kept being distracted by other things that I should do, and forgetting half way through something that I was doing it at all, and so after a little while I was hopping about uselessly with clutter spreading around me all over the place.
In the end I made mayonnaise, and whilst I was washing up after that, I washed up lots of other things as well. Once I had got mayonnaise I could make sandwiches for the evening.
I took a picture of this. I make our sandwiches out of things that we have grown in the conservatory, except the cheese, obviously, which leads me on nicely to remember to water it, in the way that one job segues tidily into the next, and little by little I managed to claw my way back into an orderly routine again.
I went to the post office, and took the dogs out, and happily met the Peppers, returned from their Kendal adventure, and slowly the day eased itself into an acceptable shape.
I even found time for some more painting before I had to dash off to work.
The living room is nearly finished now.
Another few days should do it.
