Potter

I have a nest full of chicks.

Lucy is home again.

Not only do I have Lucy and Oliver, although Oliver is mostly out at work, we are expecting a visitation from Ritalin Boy on Monday for a couple of days.

I am feeling smugly pleased with such a well-stuffed nest, rather like the birds with their beakfuls of vile-smelling dog fur.

Lucy will not be staying for very long. She arrived in the middle of the night last night, alerting me to the total uselessness of the dogs in a guarding capacity. Neither of them so much as twitched a whisker as she crept upstairs, tripping over things and scattering belongings in her wake. Eventually, Roger Poopy, who was woken up when I called to her, and who then disgraced himself by having an accident on the kitchen floor, sloped off upstairs to her bedroom, where he felt there might be a warmer welcome and less violent rebuke in the morning.

She has come to spend a few days recovering, having had the anti-bat-flu injection, and had such a miserably unhappy reaction that she felt in need of some sympathetic nursing care. She waved Mark and Oliver off to work in the morning, and then had breakfast with me and a short chat. She told me about the discouragingness of being obliged to police the sort of lawless rotters who wickedly insisted on talking to their friends in the park, after which she retreated to bed, where she has been sleeping, soundly, for the rest of the day.

I am trying not to feel political but sometimes it is difficult.

Once Lucy had retired to bed I occupied my day doing what I suppose would best be described as Pottering.

I made a chocolate cake, with thick dollops of chocolate cream and handfuls of raspberries, for dinner.

After that I ambled around the conservatory, potting plants on into more comfortably spacious pots and filling up the flower beds, ready for the thrilling moment when the little seedlings are ready to move into their Forever Homes. I regret to say that this seemed to occupy almost the whole of the day, in between the usual trials of laundry and wiping things.

I should also tell you that I have had a laundry disaster today. Mark left his telephone in his trousers and I have washed it.

It does not work any more.

I do not think it will ever work again. I put it on the back of the stove to smoke for a bit, but it is just sitting there, dark and damp as a dead jellyfish on the beach.

It was not exactly a state-of the art model. Number One Daughter wondered if it might be insured, but of course it was not, mostly because it was eleven years old and although it was probably quite smart in its youth, it has not fulfilled its early promise. Now, years and years later, it is too dumb for anything at all other than the most basic of functions.

Number One Son-In-Law thinks that he might have a spare. We will find out tomorrow.

Lucy likes the conservatory. She said that what she thinks it needs is a statue. Not one of these rubbish sort of common-or-garden statues that you purchase for a hundred and ninety nine pounds in middle-class garden centres. She thought that it would be best if I made a statue myself.

I have still got some chicken wire left, and obviously this struck me as being a brilliant idea.

I thought perhaps we could do a wall-hanging statue, after some consideration. I thought perhaps I could build an elephant’s head, looking in through a window.

Lucy said that this would be a good idea but for maximum beautiful effect, it needed its trunk to wag about and squirt water. After that she laughed a lot and  went off to bed, leaving me to consider how such a magnificent ornament might be achieved.

LATER NOTE:   Mark thinks it could be achieved without too much difficulty.

We are going to bed, contemplating wagging elephants.

Have a picture of a conservatory that definitely lacks an elephant.