I have been reorganising my house plants.
I am beginning to feel the earliest twitching of spring perhaps being on its way soon.
This is not because the weather is in the least encouraging. It has snowed, and rained, on and off all day, which is why my agricultural instincts are being expended on the house plants and not the garden.
Most of them were in the conservatory, and not doing very well, so I have brought them in to warm up, like a little holiday to get them in the mood for the hard work of the growing season ahead.
I would like one of those. Somewhere warmer than Windermere, which is almost everywhere in the world.
The hyacinths are doing nicely. I have taken some cuttings from the devil’s ivy, which had an unidentifiable, although rather attractive, iridescent green beetle squatting on it.
It seemed churlish to chuck it out into the cold, so I have left it there.
I hope is it sufficiently grateful not to lay a thousand eggs which turn into stupendously gluttonous larvae which will devour the whole lot.
I am hoping that the ground will melt enough soon for me to be able to do some proper gardening and some digging.
Partly this is because I am greatly in need of exercise, because I am becoming portly.
The pleasant bits of not being allowed to go to work, ie, loafing about watching films in the evening instead of going off to the taxi rank, and drinking wine, are turning out not to be good for my general rotundity.
Actually they are turning out to be very good indeed for my general rotundity. I am becoming rotund.
I noticed a couple of days ago that my jeans are no longer falling down.
I have always bought jeans in a size sixteen, which, in normal life, is a bit too big so that they fall down when I am not wearing a belt. This is because I do not like my clothes to be tight. Tight jeans are miserably uncomfortable for an eight-hour stretch in a taxi.
Indeed, I think probably my clothing of choice would be a sheepskin-lined floor length smock, which would be warm and not have any tiresomely uncomfortable bits. It is not good to have tight jeans anyway when you are allergic to nickel, because they rub against your skin. This means that the little metal stud things that they put in the corner of the pockets will eventually wear their protective coating off and start to itch dreadfully, making you look as though you are either terribly insanitary or have caught a flea from the dogs.
Anyway, it is a jolly good job that I am not going to be called upon to spend eight hours in a taxi in the foreseeable future, because my jeans are no longer loose and non-intrusive.
I do not need to wear a belt any more.
I only wear a belt when I have got my shirt tucked in, for the same nickel-in-the-buckle reason.
I told the Peppers about this when we were emptying the dogs this evening.
I do not know if it is legal to empty the dogs with the Peppers in our brave new world of not being allowed to do anything sociable, but on the whole I do not really care. Mark suggested that it would be perfectly legal if he met one of them and I met the other, but I am not going to restrict my outings to occasions when I can be chaperoned by Mark. Things are difficult enough as they are.
The Peppers confessed to having a similar experience, but explained that they were Taking Steps to ensure a speedy resolution.
They have undertaken a detox.
I have not really come across detoxes in real life before, and certainly have never tried one, being of the opinion that my own bodily functions do an adequate job of clearing up after my excesses, even if occasionally it does take a day or two.
They described it to me, and it sounded truly horrible, worse than being fat, because they have nobly stopped eating and drinking practically everything that I think makes life worth living.
It is only for a few days, in order to give their internal selves a little holiday from the hard work of mopping up and getting rid of wine and coffee and biscuits and chocolate, but nevertheless they have got more self-control than I have.
I thought that perhaps I might start off by trying to eat a bit less, but I had hardly started writing this when I realised that I was terribly hungry, and went downstairs for a biscuit.
There was some chocolate involved as well.
This was wicked, because Mark will be home soon and we are going to have dinner. We are going to have spaghetti bolognaise and a glass of wine and some pudding.
No wonder I am becoming portly.
Have a picture of Windermere.
