Oh dear, it has been such a quiet day that I have hardly got anything exciting to tell you.
I imagine that will be quite a surprise. I am sure that my readers are so accustomed to the edge-of-their-seats rollercoaster that is usually to be found on these pages, they will be quite taken aback at its absence.
We can’t be buccaneers all of the time. Today is a day off.
Today I made our taxi picnics and cleaned the board for the jigsaw. We have not done any jigsaws lately, and it has been standing in the wood store in the yard, where it has become misfortunately covered in evidence of past slugs and incontinent birds.
We have bought a jigsaw for the conservatory for when the children come home next week. I have told Mark that he is only allowed to do it when he is not supposed to be doing other things. He likes jigsaws so much that it can take him twenty minutes just to walk past one, and last time we had one he even forgot about things like making our morning coffee and bringing in firewood, because of it being such an interesting distraction.
I think it is an interesting distraction as well but have got more self-control.
I have put the newly-cleaned board on the table in the conservatory, and put my painting easel on the other side. This is because it is the Time Of Year for getting things ready for Christmas.
I have got a very lot to do, some of which involves painting pictures for people. I always think that I will start on this at the beginning of the year, for instance, in March, and then I can progress with it in a slow and leisurely manner, savouring the happiness of creativity.
Of course it is never like that, and inevitably turns into a slapdash rush in November, when I am supposed to have finished., and have to have late nights and backache in order to get it done on time. By then I am in a terrible panic because it is too late, and finish up leaving lots of things out that I would have liked to put into the pictures, and hence always feel cross with them.
This year has been no different so far.
Obviously I do not want to have an enormous easel occupying all of the table between March and November, and it is such a terrific faff to get it all out and then put it all away an hour later, that equally obviously, I am not going to bother.
Today I have collected the paints out of the camper van and the easel from under my desk. I have washed the paint-mixing saucer and found some clean paint rags. I have assembled it all together in the conservatory, where the light is good.
I felt so very pleased with this achievement that I managed completely to ignore the fact that it is halfway through October and I have still not painted a single brush stroke.
I am going to have to stop procrastinating soon. Probably in about three weeks’ time.
I am going to have lots of opportunities for procrastination, because my university course starts tomorrow.
I can hardly believe that this is really happening after all. It seems to have been ages since I was tentatively putting together a portfolio of writing and hopefully sending it off. Even when I got the acceptance letter I did not believe that I would ever really be a student.
I never got round to buying a duffle coat, and I did not bother to turn up for Freshers’ Week, but I am a student all the same.
I could even have a railcard if I wanted.
It all starts tomorrow night.
I am very excited.
