It has been a tiresome sort of day.
I have had to take Oliver back to the orthodontist after his brace came off his teeth last night.
We thought that we would make the most of the trip. We thought that Mark could go to B&Q to collect some fittings that he wanted, Lucy could go to Waterstones and I could go to Asda, so Mark rushed out to empty the dogs in the Library Gardens whilst I washed the coffee mugs, and we all loaded ourselves into the car together.
The orthodontist took ages. He dismantled Oliver’s brace and rebuilt it.
By the time he had finished, Oliver was so ghastly white and shaking that we all looked at him and thought that perhaps it might be best if we just went home instead.
We had forgotten to have any breakfast. This was a problem, because the orthodontist had told Oliver that he must not eat anything at all for at least two hours. It did not seem exactly fair for the rest of us to fill ourselves with cheese on toast whilst poor white Oliver had nothing, so I made hot chocolate for every body instead.
It was the nice sort of hot chocolate, made by melting a bar of chocolate and adding sugar, milk and cream until it was all hot and thick and bubbly.
None of us were hungry after this.
Oliver went back to bed.
Mark went off to the farm on some vague project of his own, and I pegged the washing out in between the intermittent snow, and hoped that it would dry, which it didn’t.
I made soup, because Oliver’s eating capacity is going to be somewhat limited for the next few days. In fact this was really rather convenient, because I had a drawer full of elderly vegetables beginning to go squishy in the fridge. We had tomato soup with added lettuce, parsnips, carrots and spinach. I chopped up onions and garlic, and mixed the whole lot with cream and the stock left over after I had roasted ham for Mark’s sandwiches last week.
All in all it turned out very fine indeed, and I served it up in full expectation that Oliver might eat his first vegetables ever, but it turned out in the end that it was a wasted effort, because he ate the bread and left the soup.
Everybody else ate it so it didn’t matter.
After that I resisted the temptation to sit around reading Facebook and looking at the newspaper, and compelled myself to read the homework issued by my class tutor. There is a piece to be written as well, but since I have not done any walking lately, my brain does not seem too be functioning very well, and I have not been able to think about it in any kind of sensible way. Maybe tomorrow.
Number Two Daughter telephoned whilst we were in Kendal.
It appears that now she is a grown up householder, with a dog and a garden and a proper job, the children have organised themselves into going to see her in Canada this summer.
I have been vaguely aware of some background discussion of this project, but not really considered it in any detail.
It turns out that they have booked themselves on to a flight from Gatwick in August. They are going for two weeks.
I was impressed with this. Of course both of them are gainfully employed, and functional holders of passports and bank accounts, and so there is no reason why they should not.
It is jolly kind of Number Two Daughter. What a splendid adventure it is going to be.
She lives just around the corner from Anne of Green Gables. They can all pop around and see the Lake of Shining Waters.
I am quite excited on their behalf.
