I am not writing in these pages.
It takes up too much time that I ought to be spending on other things.
All the same, when a day has been as lovely as today I can’t bear to just let it slip away unrecorded. Mark is in the shower, and I have got a few quiet minutes, and so I thought perhaps I might just…
We are in York.
We have come to see the Mystery Plays, because having written one I wanted to see them happening for real. They are only on every four years, and it was just a joyful chance of fate that it happened to be not only this year, but just a couple of weeks after my own literary attempt, with which obviously you are familiar.
Lucy came with us. That is to say, she came across in her own car and parked it across the road from the camper van, and now she has gone and we are still here. She has got to start being a policeman in Kettering again tomorrow afternoon, and thought that waking up in York might not be the best way of facilitating this.
All the same, she was here this morning when we woke up, which did not happen until ten o’ clock. I was mildly surprised about this, because we had been thoroughly in bed before eleven last night, but we have been burning the cash-producing candles at both ends lately.
It was hot.
We were utterly astonished at this, because we have been in the Lake District, where it is not hot, not in the least, and it was a surprise and a joy.
Also we were not expecting it, so it was something of a scramble to find suitably un-woollen, non-thermal insulated clothes. Eventually we dug out shorts and dresses and T-shirts, and then wondered what to do with the dogs.
Usually this is not a problem, because we start the day with a walk for us, and a charge about for them, after which they pass out in the bottom of the camper van whilst we go out.
Today we had to leave all the windows open and explain to the dogs that they were to use their best threatening behaviour if anybody tried to climb through them. They must have been good at this, because when we got back there were no burglars and everything was still there.
We had parked under a tree, and in fact the van had stayed very pleasantly cool.
We were not pleasantly cool. We had unearthed some suncream, which had last been used by Lucy on a school trip aged six, but we were still the colour of peonies when we came back.
We had walked into York and visited Waterstones. After that we had looked at the Apple shop because I want a new computer because this one is rubbish. Some of the letters don’t work and I have to go through afterwards and bash them until they appear. I said that there is no point in having a computer since I don’t write a diary any more, and Mark said that perhaps I might like to write one again some day, which was prescient of him.
We did not buy a computer because they were so staggeringly expensive that even Mark, who is the most financially reckless person of my acquaintance, went a bit pale and we thought we would think about it overnight.
Then we went to a pub by the river where we sat in the sunshine and drank a whole bottle of wonderfully chilled Prosecco, served with raspberries in the glasses. This was not wicked because there were three of us so it isn’t really excessive, and it was Mark’s birthday the other day as well.
We had some fried halloumi, which I bought once, but which Mark said was like eating flip-flops so I didn’t bother again. We tried it today and it was still a bit flip-floppy but quite remarkably nice anyway, so I might buy some more one day. Then we staggered along the river bank and got on a boat which took us on a merry chug upstream and back again whilst the captain tooted the horn and gave a running commentary about various historical uses for the river. York has been a very busy sort of spot.
We went back to the camper van after that, and I am sorry to tell you that we dragged the deckchairs out under the tree and drank another bottle of Prosecco. The dogs belted about for about five minutes and then collapsed under our chairs, with their tongues hanging out.
Elspeth’s son turned up then, because he is at university in York, and he and Lucy buzzed off into town to have dinner. We followed more slowly, and eventually drifted over to the Shambles, which was where the plays were being held.
We walked round from one spot to another, and saw a different play in every one, and it was absolutely splendid.
I mean really splendid. The Worshipful Guild of Vegan Butchers didn’t make an appearance, but it was brilliant. The plays are meant to be performed by amateurs, and the scripts were the medieval originals, and because of those things they were funny and powerful and shocking.
When they were first performed everybody would have believed it was all true, which I don’t, not really, most especially the bit about the serpent and the apple, but you have to Suspend Your Disbelief when you are at the theatre, even if it is an old marketplace. I wandered back in a bit of a daze, resolving to be a better person and feeling very peaceful in my Inner Soul.
We had a happy cup of tea in the camper van, and Lucy went home. She will still be driving even as I write, on her little own through the cloudless night.
We got ready for bed, which is where I am now.
Mark is out of the shower.
It has been lovely.
