I have had a lovely day.
I have been for a walk.
I did not walk all the way across the park and up the road to the woods. I cheated and went in the taxi for that bit, but it did not matter because that is not the best bit.
The best bits are the woods and the fells, and they were brilliant.
Speedwells and forget-me-nots, wild irises and mallows, dog roses, cow parsley and foxgloves were absolutely bursting out of every possible corner. The last of the hawthorn blossom was still scattering in the wind, wild cherries were beginning to swell, and the elderflowers were filling the air with their lovely sharp scent. When I got to the top of the first fell I looked down at the lake, and watched the tiny white sails flapping along it underneath the purple pikes of the Langdales, and felt very happy indeed. I have missed it very much.
It is very, very dry. The becks are not becks any more, some of them are barely more than puddles. The little pond at the bottom of the fell was no longer a pond, but a muddy ooze. The grass was shiny and slippery and the path was cracked.
I had not put my boots on, and took my flip-flops off and walked barefoot for most of it, because it was easier than sliding around on the grass. It is quite surprisingly difficult to manage fell walking when one ankle will not quite do what it is told, you use your ankles for a lot more than you might think. They wag about from side to side quite a bit, walking is a lot more complicated than you might guess, especially on steep, uneven ground. Certainly by the end of it I was very glad I had got the car at the bottom, and collapsed into it with some relief.
My foot is fat and sore again now, but I absolutely don’t care, it was absolutely worth it, what a wonderful, glorious morning.
The dogs enjoyed it too, and were remarkably good, although there were a lot of sheep.
I turned my phone off after the first five minutes, because it kept dinging with the tiresome Whatsapp feature that means lots of people can write to you all at once. This can be really irritating. Today I discovered that my university course group have all got their knickers in a complete twist because we have got a deadline to meet.
It is not a deadline for work, but for a decision.
I made the decision ages ago, and so I do not care, but everybody else seems to have got into an absolute tizz. Next year we will be doing most of our learning one-to-one with a single tutor, and we have got to decide which tutor we would like best. You have got to put three choices in, and hopefully you will be married up with the one that you like best.
As far as I can see this is not in the least stressful. These are professors at Cambridge, and it is like being asked which is your favourite sort of chocolate cream cake, or which day would suit you best for God to answer your prayers. I am going to spend the next year in private communication with an expert who is going to examine my writing, suggest ways I can improve, and help me polish until it is perfect. Hence I can’t imagine being given a tutor who would not be an absolute joy to work with, certainly it will be an improvement on reading my stuff to Mark or the children, all of whom are too polite to tell me what they think.
The thing is that everybody else has decided that they can’t possibly make a decision so soon after writing an assignment, and they have requested an extension so that they can think about it a bit longer. I am irritated about this, because sympathetic tolerance is not my best-developed character trait, and I would like to know so that I can begin reliably to predict the events of my next year. You might remember that I do not like not knowing what happens in the end, and always have to skip ahead to find out. I feel the same about this.
I don’t suppose it matters really so I have just solved the endless student-dinging by turning my phone off. I suppose I had better turn it on again now, but if your calls to me today have been ruthlessly ignored, I am sorry.
Actually I am not sorry. It meant I have had a wonderfully peaceful walk.
It has been splendid.
