It is Saturday, and I did not need to empty the dogs, because despite the lashing rain, Mark went off to the farm and took them along with him.
I do not know how much they appreciated this. They were not at all joyful, in fact all three of them were very wet and cold when they came home, and we lit the fire to dry all of their sodden bodies.
The purpose of their outing was for Mark to weed his vegetable garden, and apart from being in the state of a newly resurfaced submarine, he came back in the highest of high spirits.
We have not had any time for the vegetables for absolutely ages, and imagined that they would not have fared very well. They have had neglected weeks of struggling through the pitiless environmental challenges of being little seeds in an unfriendly world.
There has, of course, been the recent prolonged and desiccating drought. I and my washing have been very grateful for this, but it is not good for little seedlings.
There has also been the eternal difficulty of the marauding deer, who have got lots and lots of lovely things to eat in the broad spectrum of the Lake District, but who nevertheless prefer home-grown vegetables if they can find them. Do bear this in mind if ever you are trying to lure one in for dinner. Bait your trap with carrots and courgettes, and they will instantly appear in their thousands, very likely trampling you into the mud in their haste to reach such a desirable prize.
We have got lots of deer around the field, and in my inner soul I had not expected that there would be a single hopeful leafy seedlet remaining.
Certainly we did not deserve for there to be anything left, because we have not done a thing there for weeks.
We considered this this morning over coffee, and decided that perhaps really we ought to put a bit more effort into the vegetable garden, given the dreary state of politics in the world at the moment. When we reach that terrible future day when Boris and his WellBeing App can analyse all of your shopping and stop you spending too much on biscuits and red wine, it will be very useful indeed to have a small private supply of nice things.
Obviously we are not going to grow biscuits and red wine, although I do wish you could grow biscuits, it would save an awful lot of faffing about.
In fact we think that it might be useful to have some bees, perhaps, a dozen more black currant bushes, a good stretch of raspberry canes, and some chickens.
I do not know how we will arrange butter once our beloved leader has made cows illegal. You are supposed to be able to use squished pumpkins instead of butter in most recipes, but I have never tried it. I will let you know when I do.
In the event it turned out today that most of the garden had survived splendidly, much to our great astonishment, and we have got rows of parsnips and beet and carrots plugging away ready for the winter.
It all needed hoeing and weeding, and some things had been completely eaten by the tiresome deer, but this is our own fault for not getting round to putting the fence up yet. The same wicked deer had tugged some of the beets completely out of the ground, and he brought those home, the beets, not the deer, obviously. They are small and will not make much of a dinner, but they smell sweet and earthy, and will be useful for filling corners of insufficient risotto.
There is so much that we need to do there. I wish we had more time. I do not know how my life manages to tick away so very quickly.
Today ticked away exactly like that.
By the time I had finished washing up the huge pile of dishes, because of course we still do not have a dishwasher, and it takes ages because of boiling the kettle, because of course we still do not have any hot water, it was almost time to get ready for work.
We dashed upstairs to get Lucy’s bedroom ready. I have washed all of the sheets since Ritalin Boy’s departure, which turned out to be just as well, because she is coming home this evening for a few days.
After that we rushed out to work.
LATER NOTE: We have just got in. It is four in the morning. I am going to bed.
Have a picture of a garden, a dog and a new taxi.
