This is going to be the most hurried of hasty entries.
It is past my bed-time and it is clean sheets night and so I do not wish to delay any longer. I am going to tell you about my day in a few succinct and well-chosen words, the way our writing tutors tell us that we are supposed to do, and then I am off to the clean sheets.
Clean sheets are always a splendid moment, especially when, like today, they have dried outside. Indeed, they dried so well that I brought them in and pegged the trousers and towels out afterwards, perhaps spring is indeed springing.
Of course we still have our visitors, although they are planning their departure tomorrow. My sister is still with us, in the sense of being in her camper van in the alley at the back of the house. Fortunately it is not a very big camper van and most cars can squeeze past it. The few that can’t, which was really only the chap with the truck from the top of the alley, have been entirely sanguine about it and just shrugged and went round the other way, which I thought was very kind of him.
Mark buzzed off to work and we went off for a walk over the fell. The dogs were remarkably good, and we didn’t lose either of them, not once, although Roger Poopy spoiled all credit that he had earned by being sick on the sofa later. Fortunately we noticed it before any of us sat in it but he was still not popular.
It was rather a splendid morning, clear and blustery and fresh, there is still snow on the very tops of the fells. It was nice to walk with my sister, whose legs are no longer than mine, and who did not seem to mind that I have to stop to admire the view every few minutes, until I get my breath back.
Afterwards I found things to do in the house and they buzzed off to the park. I cut back all of the ivy around my office window. It has sprouted enthusiastically this spring, and it was beginning to obscure the light from my office. Also it had got a nasty attack of blackfly. This is tiresome, because it was absolutely thick with them, millions and millions of little black horrors. The problem is not just that they eat all of the ivy, but also that they poo on the window. Blackfly poo is sticky and smeary and not the sort of thing that you will find featured in the Ideal Homes Exhibition.
Hence I cut some of the worst of it back, and squirted the rest with washing up liquid, so perhaps the difficulty will resolve itself.
I was just wondering what I ought to do with the piles of blackfly now covering my office carpet when my sister returned. It appeared that my nephew had Come A Cropper on the skate park, and was now bearing an exciting looking lump on his head.
I was mildly embarrassed to reveal our unpromising first aid kit for such an emergency, there were laxatives and Germolene, some antibiotics in case the world comes to an end and we need them, and some eye stuff we had been given for the dogs which works just as well on people. My sister is a doctor and was not desperately impressed, although unsurprised, and I compensated by whizzing round to Sainsbury’s for some frozen peas, which did the trick.
He thought that probably it would recover best if he spent the afternoon loafing on his bed watching YouTube, which by a startling coincidence was exactly what Oliver was doing, so when I had finished getting dinner ready I had a peaceful cup of tea with my sister before my university class started.
I might tell you about my class tomorrow. I can hear Mark finishing in the shower and the clean sheets have most definitely got my name on them, unless it is sparrow poo.
See you tomorrow.
