Lucy is twenty today.
She was born to some know-nothing juvenile who had all sorts of inspired and woolly ideas about the adventures we might have and the lives we might all lead together afterwards.
The person I have since become did none of those things.
All the same, it has been a busy twenty years.
We had given her her birthday present when she visited last week, in case she was not allowed to come up when the current round of bat flu imprisonments hit, so things were a little subdued this morning. All the same, she was most pleased and cheerful to open a pile of birthday cards, some towels and slippers, and the usual small stash of cash.
It is an odd feeling, to have children who are so old that they are genuinely, truly pleased to get towels and slippers for their birthday.
I have got my eye on a pair of slippers that I thought I might buy myself for Christmas. They are made of beautiful maroon or grey sheepskin, but they are so eye-wateringly expensive that I think I had better wait until the January sales, or possibly consider making some of my own. I have got an old sheepskin jacket with a tear in it that would probably do, it can’t be that difficult.
If anybody who is reading this manages to win the lottery between now and Christmas, then I am a size five.
I have spent the day making a large raspberry and strawberry cream cake, because Lucy had buzzed off to work with Mark again. I went to Booths for the ingredients, which is so beautifully presented and seasonal and welcoming that I had spent fifty quid before I even noticed.
We will be having home made lamb burgers for dinner, with mashed up vegetables. These are called creamed when you manage to get all the lumps out, which I didn’t, and some Heritage potatoes. I do not know what Heritage potatoes are, but there was a nice picture of a smiling farmer above the stand, telling us that we would boost our ethical credentials with a simple purchase, so I ignored the troubling concern that they were a pound more expensive than the non-inherited sort, and bought them anyway.
It is, after all, a special occasion.
I shall have to make sure that that Mark and Lucy notice. I do not want them just to stuff them in whilst they are chatting, as if they were any old potatoes. If I am going to splash out extra on upmarket ethical potatoes then they can jolly well eat them thoughtfully, and with appreciation.
The whole faff about with the cooking seemed to take up most of the day. Mark had brought home some properly free-range eggs from an allotment holder in Barrow, so I made mayonnaise, and of course it was lots thicker and nicer than usual. I do not know why free range eggs work better. We always buy the ones that the shops tell us are free range, but they are never as good as the ones from your own chickens, the ones that have been free to wander wherever they liked and have scratched up all of your vegetable plot, given themselves dust baths in your seedling beds, and pooed on your garden furniture.
We are contemplating ways in which we might have chickens again, but so far it looks as though it will take up rather more time than we have actually got, since we are working on the assumption that one day I will go back to work again. I would like that. I do not think that I like being unemployed. It is nice to have lots of time to do things, but it would be useful to have more cash.
We are the lucky ones, because Mark is working. Some of the taxi drivers are so desperate that they are still trying to earn money from the taxi ranks, and one of them told me that their takings this week have been in the region of three or four pounds a day.
We are so fortunate. We are so flush that we can eat heritage potatoes for dinner and hardly give it a second thought.
Have a picture of my feet.
