I am feeling so self-satisfied that I can hardly bear to be in the same room with myself.
To say that I am unbearably smug does not do justice to my current frame of mind, which is bordering on unassailable conceit.
I have just had the marks for my first assignment.
I think I have told you that we have to hand in an assignment at the end of every term, marks for which are calculated for the final grade. Basically the final mark is divided into three parts, and I got the first today.
Obviously I got a first. I would be swinging from the banisters by now had I not. My self-esteem would have collapsed, my soul would have dissolved, my heart would have been crushed to dust. My current mood of unbearable self-congratulation was caused not by the mark, which reached the grade at which a candidate is considered publishable, but by the extraordinarily complimentary remarks from the examiners. I am, it would appear, in possession of a brilliantly critical mind, masterful, rigorous and thoughtful, amongst other superlatives with which I will not bore you. There was quite a lot of it.
I had got dozens and dozens of things that I needed to do today, and I regret to say that I did not do them. I found the marks when I got back from the dog-emptying and I even forgot about breakfast. I sat blissfully in front of the computer and basked in my own wonderfulness.
You will be astounded by how long it took me to get bored with this. I did not even do the computer things that I was supposed to do, like writing a third short story and a critical analysis of somebody else’s work. Instead I drifted happily down to the kitchen and then back up the stairs again, where I re-read all of the wonderful things and ate not only all the rest of the hot cross buns, but half a loaf of bannock, a banana and some chocolate before I noticed and realised that I ought to stop.
I had to go to Sainsbury’s for some more butter.
It is a good thing there are only three assignments otherwise I would have a girth like a tractor tyre.
I made myself stop being pleased with myself, and considered the best way to write the last of the short stories whilst I made some sushi for tonight’s taxi picnic. Despite being distracted, the sushi turned out reasonably well, and stuck together, mostly, and once I had sliced melons and mango and filled the salad boxes, I dashed back upstairs and forced myself to write a new short story instead of just re-reading the one that the examiner had thought was visceral and subtle.
I just thought I would drop those in so you knew.
Also having salad for dinner will make up for all of the bannock, so things are not lost yet.
I wrote the last story, which is about an old lady on a fairground roundabout. I had thought of it whilst I was trudging over the fell in the blustery hail and snow with the dogs.
It has become jolly chilly here in the Lakes, and I was not at all sorry to get home.
I had already read all of the nice things to Mark on the telephone, but when he came home I made him read them again anyway, and he was suitably pleased on my behalf.
He liked the short story as well, which is why I married him.
I have sent the short stories off to the competition, and now I had better go to work.
I might just have another look at it on the taxi rank.
