I have had the sort of day which does not go at all according to plan.
I had a long list of things I wanted to do today and I have not done any of them.
I am pleased to tell you that the thing at which I have been successful was the manufacture of a raspberry cheesecake. I like raspberry cheesecake, it is one of my all time favourite things to eat. I also managed to sweep out the dog-related mud that had dried into crumbly dust all over the conservatory floor, and to refill the fireplace with firewood. I hung the washing in the garden, where it did not dry, so I hung it in the house when it started to go dark. This means that it is still wet, and I have a horrid guilty feeling that our bath towels will not be dry by the time we want them for our showers tonight.
I am not sure if this last counts as an achievement or not.
As far as achievements go, that was it.
The first thing that happened was that one of the other taxi drivers dropped round for a chat. He has been trying to earn some money in his taxi. This has turned into a dispiriting sort of endeavour which has earned him £7.40 all week so far, but you are not prohibited from going to work if you are a taxi driver, so he thought he should do the decent and honest thing and not rely on state handouts but give it a go.
I am glad that I have not been troubled by those sorts of scruples.
It was very nice to talk to him and to catch up on the comings and goings of the world of Lake District transport. Actually at the moment ‘comings and goings’ is an inappropriate phrase. It ought to be ‘the staying still of Lake District transport’.
It would appear that the Lake District has been placed in Tier Two of the new nationally extended prison system. This is somewhere below sex offenders but above those who have just not paid their television licence. More than that I have got no idea, never having bothered to research the implications.
Probably we are allowed exercise privileges and two visits a month, subject to Home Office approval.
I do not expect that we will have a sudden influx of tourists and am feeling very gloomy about being obliged to return to the taxi rank, most especially because it seems unlikely that I will earn anything whilst I am there.
C’est la vie.
He had just departed, and I had rushed back into the house to continue with my planned activities, when the telephone rang, and it was the Peppers.
They wondered, cautiously if I might like to pop over, if I wasn’t busy.
I agreed that I wasn’t busy, since I wasn’t, yet.
Bring some working gloves, they said, cheerily. A wagon load of building blocks has just arrived for the new extension, and they need to be moved into the back yard.
I am very pleased to tell you that the Daily Telegraph can be proud of my efforts to do exercise and fresh air. I ought to be able to stand on one leg for hours and hours now, even with my eyes shut.
There were a very lot of blocks. Imagine enough blocks to build an extension. That many.
They were about the size of breeze blocks, but very much heavier.
The truck had brought almost all of the blocks needed to build the new extension, and they were so heavy that we could only manage one at a time.
They had to be carried along the dustbin passage at the back of their house and up the steps into the garden.
The truck unloaded them all and then went away to bring another load.
It turns out that I am rather fitter than I thought I was, because at no time did I collapse into a twitching heap and beg to be allowed to go home.
I might, however, have an early night.
The picture is Roger Poopy and Pepper. They found a tree root sticking into the beck this morning on our walk, and thought they would see if they could dig it up. They couldn’t, but they got very muddy and wet in the attempt.
