It has been a busy sort of day, and I am very glad to shirk for a little while and write to you.
I should have gone to work, because the world has parole at the moment, at least until the Government’s probationary committee reports bad behaviour and we are all locked up again. Anyway, I didn’t.
This was because various people have visited Bowness during the course of today and all reported that it was as utterly deserted as if we had got a terrifying infectious plague stalking the streets.
Without visiting tourists there is no point whatsoever in being at work. Obviously we have got local residents, but none of them have got any money any more, and certainly won’t be going out for dinner. If they were allowed to drink I imagine that would be a very different matter.
Also I did not finish rushing about until this very minute, and so I would not have had the time to go to work, even if anybody was brave and foolhardy enough to stick their nose out of doors and long for a welcoming hostelry.
I have been shopping.
I do not like going shopping.
It is so long since I have driven anywhere that I had practically forgotten how. Also, and this turned into another reason for not going to work, when I came to get in my taxi it turned out that somebody else had been using it whilst I cleaned out their taxi. They had turned it into a squalid mess of plaster dust and wood shavings and wrappings from sausage sandwiches, and there was even a bit of dead sausage on the floor.
We will not shame anybody by naming them, suffice to say that divorce was contemplated.
I do not have the words to tell you about my lack of joy at this discovery.
I did not have the time to clean it anyway, because of going to Asda.
Asda was hateful, largely because of the horrible mask, but also because of being purse-crushingly expensive, having half-empty shelves, and a trolley that had been squirted with disinfectant that made my hands red and itchy.
I do not know what it is that makes my hands itch so badly. Firewood and garden soil do the same. Last time I filled up the log pile I had to take an anti-histamine tablet as well as practically wash my hands in cream. My fingers get fat and pink, like a budget family pack of raw sausages, and I become stupidly clumsy. This did not make the shopping any easier.
I spent so much money that I dare not look at our bank account, and heaved it all into the back of the filthy taxi. I had to be helped in this endeavour by a man from Asda, who took pity on me.
I was almost home when it started to rain. It had been a rather splendid day until then, so sunny, in fact, that I had been blinded whilst driving. This was because the windscreen was also filthy, and the bottle of screen wash was empty, having squirted itself all over the back windows every time the fuse got wet.
You might remember this small nuisance from the olden days when I was gainfully employed.
I put my foot down to get home through the rain for the washing, which was pegged in the yard. The Weather Gods must have been waiting, because I got wet through dragging the washing in off the line, and then wet through hauling the shopping in out of the car, after which the clouds cleared and the sun beamed its joyous benevolence once again.
I put some music on and started stuffing tins of condensed milk in cupboards. Asda had been selling pastry flour at twenty pence a bag, so I bought loads and then couldn’t think of anywhere to put it. Mostly I stuffed it in the drawers in the living room. I will forget that it is there and it will be a surprise one day when I am looking for something obscure.
Spotify, which is the music-playing thing on the telephone, had written me a letter, which I saw when I switched it on to play it.
Apparently my most-listened-to tune of the year was When You Wish Upon A Star.
I am never going to manage to be hip and trendy.
Also Number Two Daughter rang. She has got a new job, checking things when they arrive somewhere and making sure that they are all right. More than that I do not know, but it could be the start of a thrilling new career.
I do hope so.
Have a picture of Pepper and Roger Poopy’s bottom.
