Dressing

The evening is turning out to be rather busier than I have expected.

I am glad of this because I am saving up to go and purchase some fuel.

I have been entirely busy all day, although now I am thinking about it I am not exactly sure what has taken me so long. Some of it was dog walking, which always takes ages, but is a glorious opportunity for an almost uninterrupted stump-and-think, occasionally looking up to notice the birds and the sheep and to see what the dogs are up to. I almost walked into a heron this morning, which must have been as preoccupied as I was, I don’t know which of us was the more surprised. It flapped off, quite soundlessly, which impressed me, I didn’t know they did that. Owls fly silently because of the serrated feathers on the front of their wings, but I don’t think herons have got them. It must just have been in stealth mode.

I have been organising some clothes to wear for going south. At the moment I have got two identical plain brown dresses which I am wearing alternately, so my clothes are comfortably predictable the whole time. You might recall that I bought some more, which are the same style, but have not worn them much because they are black, which is not very summery.

Last week Mark decided that he would have a go at tie-dying one of them, well, tie-bleaching it really, which actually turned out surprisingly well, it is now an interesting creamy colour with blotches of black and beige. It is not exactly sophisticated, but since we live in a world where people cut holes in their trousers before they wear them I think it will be perfectly acceptable and in fact it is rather splendid to wear.

Today I thought I would have a go at the other. I knotted some stones into it and tied bits of string around it, and dumped it into the bleach. The result so far is blotchy but still better than trousers with holes in them. I am going to take it out when I get home from work and see how it has finished up. I will have two almost-new dresses, which will be brilliant, because even if they are very weird indeed they will be better than the faded brown ones, which are beginning to look as though they might feature in a pantomime just before the magical transformation bit with the pumpkin.

Whilst I was upgrading my wardrobe I dug out another dress, purchased on the market in York and unworn because of the scariness of wearing new clothes, also because it has stupid baggy sleeves that will not roll up. I cut them off and made them into pockets, because for some arcane reason women’s clothes do not come with pockets, as if we didn’t need to carry handkerchiefs and dog poo bags and telephones and clothes pegs and reading glasses. I have done this with other dresses a few weeks ago, and it worked quite well. This one seems all right as well, if we really go on holiday next week I will have so many clothes I will be able to change twice a day.

After that I did some cooking. Mark has brought some vegetables back from the farm which needed using up, so I popped round to the butcher for eggs and made a massive cheese omelette, with onions and mashed potatoes and fresh peas. It is about an inch thick, and when it cooled I cut it into slices. It will last us all weekend.

The potatoes are inexplicably purple. I am not sure why we are growing purple potatoes, but they seem to taste just fine, although the omelette is rather an interesting colour.

In between things I flapped about with laundry and wrote my story, which is what I am going to go and do now.

It is coming along, a little bit at a time.

I might be JK Rowling yet.