The Peppers came to the door this afternoon with some home-made chocolates for our Christmas present.
These were absolutely divine, and reassured me about something that has worried me, on and off, for years, which is that actually it is very nice to be given home-made chocolates for Christmas.
I did not eat them all. I had one and then virtuously saved the rest to share with Mark when he came home from work.
I couldn’t wait quite that long and had another just before he came home.
It was a nice thing to happen in what has been otherwise a tediously difficult day.
It has been grey, and filled with wet drizzle, and the cold has shivered just around freezing. The dogs and I had a dreary sort of walk this morning, splashing through the recently-melted puddles over the still-frozen mud. The dogs would not run after the tennis ball that I threw, and I had to fetch it myself, and after a little while Roger Poopy’s father stopped going for a walk and trudged back to stand by the park gate, shivering miserably, until I agreed that we could go home.
Having got home I hauled in some firewood. We are still burning fire doors, which are the most magnificent winter fuel, and fortunately the new shelter Mark built has kept the rain off them splendidly.
After that, and after hanging up the washing, I felt myself sink into a sort of self-pitying ennui. Obviously there were lots of things that I ought to be doing, like reorganising the conservatory for the spring planting, or tidying the horrible mess in the attic. There were even some things that I thought I might quite like to be doing, like painting some pictures of flowers on a very dull table in the living room. I have actually started doing this last. I painted three sprigs of lavender, left tubes of paint and smeary rags all over the place, and then lost interest.
I knew, even before I had managed to think of an excuse, that I was not going to do anything impressive all day.
I do not like feeling like this.
I like my life when it is filled with challenges, and with things to look forward to, and with promises of springtime and days in the camper van, and drinking wine with my friends.
I know that these things will all come back sooner or later, but somehow today I missed them very much.
I wrote some non-urgent letters, because at least they were sitting down, and sighed and felt gloomy.
I even looked at Facebook, which I absolutely hate doing during the day. It always feels as though I have fallen into a guilty trap which is only one tiny step better than boredom. Indeed, it is worse, because it helps you ignore your boredom without actually replacing it with anything interesting.
I am going to close my Facebook account, I think, one of these days. I have not done this yet because these pages go there, but I think I am going to have to find a way of sharing them without Facebook. It is the most horrible waste of a life if you let yourself become sucked into it. It is too easy just to look, and then to lose ten minutes of your life. This does not happen to me when we are living our lives, but it is starting to happen now. I will keep you posted about this.
In the end I tidied up, yet again, and cooked a mango and coconut curry for dinner.
Mark came home and said that he felt the same, so we switched the new television set on and watched three episodes, one after another, of a detective story on Amazon, and ate curry.
I am very glad that tomorrow is another day, because I have jolly well had enough of today.
The picture is Oliver, taken yesterday, because I didn’t even muster the enthusiasm to take a picture of anything today.
