The late diarist

It has been a slow and muddled sort of day, which was my own fault for going to bed rather later than I should have done last night.

I had not intended to be later, and indeed, things started off very sensibly, because we had loaded the dishwasher and filled the fire with logs and emptied the dogs by ten o’clock. We ambled up the stairs, and were going to get showered and go to bed, when we met Oliver coming down the stairs.

An hour later we were all still sitting on the stairs chatting.

It was lovely really. Oliver was telling us funny stories from the days when he was a very little boy in his prep school, and we all laughed until our faces hurt.

I should have gone to bed instead.

In consequence I did not want to open my eyes when the alarm went off, and have spent today in a slightly bleary-eyed fog of confusion. It was the sort of day where you start doing something and after a little while realise that you are not doing anything but gazing absently out of the window, and then can’t remember what it was you were supposed to be doing in the first place.

I had been distracted anyway, because today, after weeks of endless wrangling, the poor patient jury in the court case in which, as you might recall, we were witnesses, has finally retreated to deliberate about whether or not the accused have Done It.

Do not get too excited, because they were still deliberating when the court closed for the day, and presumably the cleaners came round and chucked them all out. They have got to come back and deliberate a bit more tomorrow.

I have been wondering about it all day, which has made me anxious and distracted. I have become embroiled in the sort of torturous mental gymnastics whereby you start to imagine the outcome that you would like, and then dare not think about it in case it influences the Gods to do the other thing just to spite you. After that you try and cancel out the black magic by imagining how you would cope with the outcome that you don’t want, and then dare not think about that either, in case it encourages the Gods to do that, just to spite you.

I do not really think that any kind of thinking about anything makes any difference. How useful that would be if you could master the knack of it.

Also I think that the Gods have got other things to think about other than trying to upset unemployed taxi drivers. If the Gods really want to upset me they do not need to go to the whole trouble of persuading a jury to think something unpalatable. They only need to rain on my washing.

The day was not helped along by both dogs developing some kind of vile dog-indigestion.

Every couple of hours another pile of disgusting yellow sick appeared somewhere. Mostly this was by the back door, because I was not paying enough attention to recognise the signs and rush to let them out.

All the same, it was enough to make me review my status as an animal lover.

Both dogs are very forlorn at the moment. They are suffering from a mixture of indigestion and guilt.

I am not doing anything to ease either. They are lying under my desk and sighing.

Apart from clearing up sick, it was my day for cleaning the house anyway. This did not help me feel much more excited about life. I do not like cleaning the house. It is not easy to summon enthusiasm for a job that is already rubbish when you are both tired and busily mopping up dog sick every ten minutes.

I brightened my day by texting the people who own the holiday house next door and telling them that ten refugees had moved into it, which is not in the least true, but made me laugh.

I cleaned dust up from everywhere with no enthusiasm at all, and felt so flat and fed up after discovering black mould on yet another skirting board that I could not even summon up the energy to rush off to the farm to dig stinging nettles out of the garden.

I was just sloping around guiltily wondering if I could find an excuse for drinking the cooking sherry when the phone rang, and it was Elspeth.

She was in Windermere with her dog, which needed to go for a walk.

It is amazing how quickly you can brighten up when something nice happens.

Five minutes later I had my boots on, and the dogs were bounding down the path, all traces of everybody’s cleaning-day malaise vanished.

We had a very happy stroll around Windermere. The dogs sniffed things and could not poo because everything had already been deposited from the other end. Elspeth and I shared news and stories and suddenly felt wonderfully pleased with the day.

All the same, I am going to get an early night tonight.

Have a picture of a dog.