I am writing quickly in a race to get out to work.
I have got until the pie is cooked in the oven, and then I am going to rush off to the taxi rank.
I am rushing because everything I have done today has been rushing. It has been a Day of Haste.
This is because we have decided to depart for Scotland this evening when we have finished work.
When I say ‘this evening’, what I actually mean is at around four or five tomorrow morning, by which time it will be daylight again, and so I suppose is not technically evening any more.
Hence we have spent the day scrambling to be organised. The idea was that I would write some of my assignment. You will not be surprised to learn that I have not managed to do this. I should be doing it now, but the prospect of trying to write to you on the taxi rank in between trying not to reverse over tourists is just to horrible to be contemplated. I am going to get this bit of the day over, and then if there is any time left I will write some more assignment.
I do not know what has happened to my life lately. It is charging past me whilst I stagger along in its wake, trying to catch hold of its tail as it flashes into the distance. We put the first load of washing into the machine at four in the morning, but the last load is still flapping on the line even as I write.
We have had the magnificent good fortune of sunshine. The yard has been festooned with rows of drying sheets and towels all day, in contrast to everywhere else in the village, which is festooned with Union Jacks. It has been the day of Windermere’s Jubilee party. We did not go to it, because of having far too many other things to do, but I walked across the park with the dogs whilst it was in full swing and waved to everybody.
Mostly they were people I have been trying to avoid anyway, like tiresome taxi customers who want a discount for the spurious reason that they live two streets away from us, or because they have spent all of their money on beer and kebabs.
It all looked like jolly good fun. There was a cricket match going on, and a very great deal of beer-in-the-sunshine. I do not really like events like this, although I think they are splendid to look upon, and hurried through with as little sociability as I could decently manage, to escape to the fells and solitude.
Mark came with me as far as the park, and then took Roger Poopy’s father home, because he has become too doddery to be anything but a nuisance on long walks. He likes going, but only at his own frustratingly leisurely pace, which can add almost an hour to the walk if I do not keep chasing him onwards.
I wanted to think about my assignment, and was in a hurry because of work, so he was dispatched back to his cushion, and Roger and Rosie came with me. They are not exactly restful company, but they are at least tiresome at speed.
The toad-tadpoles in the pond have just got their legs, and I was bending over to examine them as closely as I could when Rosie leaped past me into the water, showering me with mud and sending every tadpole and newt wriggling away in great haste.
There were sheep in the field. It was Rosie’s first encounter with sheep, and obviously she was fascinated and thrilled. She would have liked very much to hurtle after them and watch them plunging away down the hill, but of course she was not allowed to. She discovered, to her great chagrin, that even to look at a sheep is the very wickedest thing a dog can do, and resigned herself sadly to walking-at-heel at Roger Poopy’s obedient side for that part of the walk, sneaking covert and longing glances at them whenever she thought that perhaps I might not be looking.
More work might be needed there, I think.
I am going to go. I am going to spend ten minutes on my assignment, by which time the pie will be crisp, and I can go to work.
The next time I write to you I will be in Scotland, and very probably asleep.
