Unsewn

It is Number One Daughter’s birthday.

I have been a parent for thirty four years.

I had to check this before I wrote it.

She seems to have been having a happy celebration with her husband and her own offspring, which sounds brilliant. Obviously I can’t be with her, but I have been indulging in long-ago memories and remembering her the way she was thirty four years ago.

She was less opinionated then. So was I, now that I think about it.

Apart from that I have spent practically the whole day trying to avoid a pile of mending that is sitting boringly on my desk.

I can’t tell you how little I am looking forward to sewing on buttons and patching sheets.

I am pleased to announce that I have been entirely successful in this endeavour, and the mending is still sitting there, untouched, even though the day is almost at its end.

Instead I have managed to find enough projects to keep myself industriously busy for the whole day.

I have made a syrup sponge for tonight’s pudding. I am aware that this is an entirely counter-productive manoeuvre, given that we thought we might like to try and lose a bit of weight, but it is still winter really, and we need to keep our energy and spirits up. I have decided that it is a bit like being a family of cave bears, you would not look judgementally on them if they were busily storing fat in the winter.

Also we have had about six bread-and-butter-puddings in the last week or so, and I couldn’t be bothered to make ice cream or pastry for apple pie.

It took rather longer than it should have done, because of a syrupy misfortune which was entirely of my own making. For various idleness-induced reasons I thought I might microwave the plastic squirty bottle of syrup to gather the last stuck bits out of the bottom.

I should not have put it into the microwave upside down.

The resulting mess took ages to clean up, and involved washing the microwave, my flip-flops, the floor, the cupboard doors and all of the work surfaces.

I got the rest of the golden syrup out of a tin, which is the way you are supposed to do it. I am not having any truck with this modern squirty stuff again. It is all just too difficult to make it work properly.

You know where you are with a tin and a spoon.

After that Oliver and I went up to the farm in Oliver’s lunch hour.

He gets a mid-day break of two hours every day in which he is not supposed to prat about on his computer playing Roblox with other rascals in his class. He is supposed to have some health-giving fresh air and exercise.

Also I needed an extra pair of hands.

Firewood takes some shifting.

Oliver acquiesced uncomplainingly, having been feeling guilty about the fresh air and exercise anyway, and we chugged over to the farm to fill the boot of my clean taxi with logs and vast quantities of sawdust.

These logs are not really quite dry enough yet. Despite having been sitting in a covered shelter for three years they are still not brilliant, but they are what we have got, and mixed in with building timber, and after a couple of days sitting at the side of the stove they are not too bad. In any case we are expecting some snow, and I do not wish to be taken unawares. It is most important to have plenty of logs, how terrible it would be to be helpless and cold if we were unprepared.

We filled the car between us. I can’t tell you how jolly useful it is to have a large-sized son hanging about. He can do all sorts of things that a titchy one can’t do, and he shoved the wheelbarrow about very handily indeed.

Roger Poopy sat at the edge of the log pile and stared hard and thoughtfully at the sheep until I shouted at him.

We made it back and unloaded just in time for afternoon school, and then Oliver did whatever Oliver is doing, and I made some yoghurt and some candles, but did not do any mending.

I have, as promised, attached a picture of the flower bed in the conservatory, which is coming along nicely, and I am longing to build another one and start growing more things.

I have been looking at pictures of jungles by way of inspiration.

Happy birthday Number One Daughter.