We are home.
The dogs are so tired they have collapsed on their cushion in front of the hastily re-lit fire, and do not look as though they will ever get up again.
Roger Poopy had had such a lovely time that he would not get out of the camper van at all when we got home, despite being shouted at and ejected every time we fell over him. He kept creeping back into it whilst we unloaded, hoping that we might change our minds and set off again. He was discovered at the very last minute as we parked on the road and locked it, hiding under the bed.
I sympathised. I did not want to come home either.
He has had a very busy day indeed. and Mark said he was lucky not to get an axe in his nose, because it was right next to the exciting things, every time.
We are exhausted as well, and so grubby that I can hardly bear to be in the nice clean house. Everything about me is gritty, with soil, or bonfire ash, or sheep poo, or just general farm grub, and I would not be in the least surprised to discover a nest of spiders in my hair. I can hardly run my fingers through it, it is stiff with sawdust and bits of wood shavings.
Even my eyebrows are full of dust.
Roger Poopy does not mind dirt. Actually he rather likes sheep poo and has had to be discouraged from trying to lick it out of the car tyres.
It has been the loveliest, happiest day.
We have finished the clearing up. We have tidied everything away and taken all of the rubbish to the tip.
The sun shone.
We have got happy souls.
There are so many things to see in the countryside that it is hard to get anything done. This morning we watched a curlew, winging her way across the sky, and a hare, lolloping idly across the bank opposite on her way to the beck at the bottom. Whilst she was there another hare, bigger and darker, came rushing up from the bluebell woods at the bottom, and they scuttered off, dancing together as they ran, so maybe they will have babies.
A solitary little deer trotted up the hill out of the dip, delicately stepping over the rocks and glancing all round her until eventually the wind carried the scent of the dogs to her, and she turned and fled away up the field.
Two pheasants fought, terribly, one pursuing the other and shouting angrily. They carried on for hours. Mark said we should go and pick up the loser because he would have been too tired to run away, but obviously we didn’t, his day looked to have been quite bad enough.
Roger Poopy would have liked to. He thought they were very interesting indeed.
We watched the world, and the sheep watched us. Every time we turned around we discovered we had a small audience of sheep, standing companionably a few yards away and bleating encouragingly. The picture is of the sheep upsetting Roger Poopy’s elderly father, who is too arthritic to leap up and run away. He was growling frantically, trying to persuade them to leave him in peace, but they wouldn’t.
We have sawn and split and stacked a very great deal of firewood, and it has taken the entire day. We have rolled logs too heavy to lift, and shoved and shunted and hoisted. Mark put a new blade in the chainsaw, and we took it in turns to slice through great thick tree trunks, turning them and cutting from all angles until finally they creaked and parted. He swung the axe, and I stacked the split pieces, and we filled the woodsheds.
This is not something you need to bother about if you have got gas central heating, and it did occur to me today, as we toiled, to wonder why we have never considered this particular labour-free option.
I have just tried to stand up, and discovered that every joint in my body seems to have locked into immobility. I am going to be very sore in the morning.
I do not mind at all. The fire is blazing downstairs, and not only have we had a very happy day, we do not have a heating bill, and I do not need to feel guilty about not bothering to renew my gym membership.
I am going to go and sit next to the fire and see if I can pick out some of my splinters.
