Steamy

We did not want to get up this morning.

This was not because of a reluctance to commence the day’s labours, but because last night we did not make our way home from our holiday until much later than we should. We shovelled down some hasty plates of pasta at about half past eleven, but even after that we did not go to bed, because of all the usual late night routine shenanigans with which one fills up one’s life when one is elderly, and a bit obsessive.

In the end we didn’t actually collapse between the sheets until some time after one.

There was a lot of groaning and yawning when the alarm went off this morning.

We have told ourselves that tonight, really, we really will get an early night, really we will, but I don’t suppose that we will, because tonight there might be some people drinking inside pubs, and I might even need to take them home when they emerge.

I am out on the taxi rank, for my first excursion into the world of work since the restrictions were lifted a bit at the beginning of the week. 

I am not feeling terribly celebratory about this. People keep saying that we are back to normal, which of course we are not. Normal means not needing to wear face masks, and being allowed to dance with strangers in pubs if you like. In fact, we are pretty much exactly back to last summer, without the curfew. I am making encouragingly happy noises about this to customers in the taxi, but really I am still growling on the inside.

Mark does not like wearing a face mask. He still wears the bucket on his head when he is obliged to go into a shop. He does not mind this so much, because it makes weary and depressed people laugh, but we will be very much happier when we can have naked faces again.

In fact I was quite pleased to come out to work. Indeed, I was hardly late at all.

At work it was cool, and fresh, even though the sun was shining. I had tried to do too many things with my day, and I was hot, and sticky, and getting out of breath by the time I finished.

The problem was that I have encountered a new difficulty in watering the conservatory. One of the hoses has come apart, and instead of trickling water gently into the arches, it all spurts out somewhere underground and floods out to create an enormous wet patch on the floor.

I do not know exactly where this is happening, and if I did I would not be able to fix it very easily, because the ground has got lots of beautiful green things growing in it, and I do not want to dig them up.

Mark has patiently explained what I could probably do about it, but what I heard sounded like: ‘warble, warble, warble’ , and I do not have the first idea what he was talking about.

Obviously I can’t just not water the conservatory until we have mended the broken hose, because everything in it is expanding like a rubber dinghy when you cheat and blow it up with the compressor that is supposed to be for putting air in car tyres.

Today I have had to exercise some restraining bondage, gently, on some of the huge leafy giants that were stopping us from getting in through the door. They are green, and lush, and they needed to be watered.

Frankly, I was at a loss.

In the end I moved the furniture out of the way and just turned the hose on.

The result was exactly what you might expect when you have just turned on a hose indoors.

It took me some time to clear up.

Afterwards the sun shone, a lot, which made the conservatory hot as well as wet. I had the oven on in the kitchen as well, cooking cakes and sausages, which made me feel like a steam pudding. 

Hence I was not sorry to escape to work.

I left the door open for the dogs, just the tiniest bit so that the conservatory would stay hot even if they wanted to visit the yard, but they glanced at it without interest and expired, hotly, under the table.

I am still at work now.

I expect the house will have cooled down by the time I get back.

I do hope so.