Kindness

Today I think I am the most fortunate person in the whole world.

I mean really fortunate. The world is a good place.

The sunshine helps me to think this.

I also think it because today I have been helped and helped by lots of kind people who did not need to bother helping me, but who have done it anyway. Not a single one said: actually I am far too clever and important to waste my time on you, elderly northern taxi driver. They have all been encouraging and lovely, and I am feeling rather humbled this evening.

The first was my course tutor, who has very kindly given up half of her Sunday afternoon to talk me through the Masters’s’ interview on Tuesday. She explained the sort of things they might ask and the sort of person they might be looking for. It was extraordinarily helpful, and in a way I almost wished I hadn’t talked to her, because by the end of it I knew that I was longing to do it so badly that my throat hurt.

This will be misfortunate if I get to the interview and squeak and gabble and accidentally pick my nose or laugh at inappropriate places. It is somewhat uncomfortable, after all of this time, to let myself notice how very much I would like to do it.

My soul is yearning towards dreaming spires, which I know perfectly well is Oxford, but it fits the bill nicely so please do not split hairs, although I acknowledge that it would be a good thing not to say during my interview. All the same, it describes perfectly the combination of learning and antiquity, beauty and civility. Also what paradise to be spending my life talking to clever people who understand what I am trying to do, and who do it better than I do. My tutor writes so well that it makes me feel slightly chilled in my spine.

I can hardly bear to think about it. I am going to have to be very brave if they tell me to buzz off.

They might. There were hundreds of applicants. There are eighteen places and they are interviewing all day every day next week. Each interview lasts for half an hour.

I am ignoring the feeling of doom.

The second lot of help was from several students on my current course, to whom I sent Symon the Black, and who have all sent it back full of crossings-out and explaining exactly what is wrong with it. They are absolutely right, and I am bowled over. One very kind person spent half an hour on the telephone from India, and made me see exactly what I had messed up, and how it could be splendid.

I came away feeling excited and more grateful than I had got words to explain. I will have yet another go at it on Monday.

In other news, we got up so late that it was almost time for work, so there was absolutely no question of a single malt for breakfast this morning, even though it was Sunday and the sun was shining and everything. We did not crawl into bed until just after six this morning, so there was some justification, but I can never quite rid myself of the feeling of guilt when I am still sitting in bed blinking and drinking coffee whilst the rest of the world has finished lunch and is halfway up Helvellyn being wholesome and virtuous.

We did not have time to go anywhere. We dragged the dogs around the park and came back. Then Mark took his drill to pieces whilst I talked to my tutor. I do not know what was wrong with his drill but it has now got a new bit in it which has made him happy.

I am going to work now.

See you later.