I am writing this during five minutes’ toe resting before our friends come around for dinner.
I made the elementary mistake of not taking any painkillers today, and by the time most of the laundry had dried and the dinner was almost ready, my foot was hurting so much that I was hobbling and gasping. I went to Sainsbury’s for some carrots, and I had to go on my crutches, and then I forgot the carrots anyway.
I rang Mark to tell him all about it and he wondered why the painkillers were not working, which alerted me to the omission.
You will not be surprised to learn that it is hardly hurting at all now.
It is entirely my own fault. It has been a day of tottering in and out of the garden, playing the Washing Game with the Weather Gods. I was not exactly in the mood for the Washing Game, but every conceivable drying space in the house is already full, and I did not at all wish our visitors to be ducking between rows of steaming underwear, dangling in their faces as they came in, so I was determined that I would use the magnificently environmentally-friendly solar drier in the yard provided by a benevolent universe, except that today the universe was not feeling charitable.
In the end I gave up after it had rained so hard that even after a frantic sore-toe rush to bring everything in, it was soaked all over again anyway. I strung it in as many discreet spaces as I could find all over the landing and the kitchen, after which the sun came out and it is now beaming warmly down on the empty yard.
There is a song in the musical The Book Of Mormon, which sums up my feelings rather splendidly. If you have seen The Book Of Mormon, you will know which one it is. If you have not, you should, it is brilliant.
Note the title in italics. I learned to do that at Cambridge, you know.
Talking about Cambridge, tomorrow night, two of our tutors are talking to one another on the mighty Internet about a book one of them has written. We are supposed to tune in and listen, but anybody can listen if they like. Obviously I would very much like to listen, because they are interesting clever tutors, although I might be obliged to do it in between customers on the taxi rank, because it is at seven o’clock when I should be at work. If you would like to listen you have got to click this link and tell them and then they send you the joining details by email . It does not cost anything but presumably they want your email address so they can send you some junk mail afterwards.
https://www.ice.cam.ac.uk/event/literary-event-conversation-nick-bradley
It is supposed to be a very good book. It is about Japan where Nick lived once. I am just telling you in case you are literary and interested in Japan or would just like to pretend to your friends that you are an intellectual, which is my reason for listening. I am not intellectual but I do like it when people imagine that I am.
LATER NOTE:
I stopped there to go and stir curry and flap about with rice. I get in a terrible tizz about cooking when we have visitors, and by the time we sat down this evening I was in such a flap that I couldn’t taste any of it and might as well have eaten toast without even bothering about the marmalade or butter. I checked with Mark afterwards, because although our visitors said it was lovely, visitors always say things like that even when you have accidentally given them the burned bit, but Mark said it was fine and to stop worrying about it.
We had a very happy evening all the same, and you could hardly tell I was in a flap, especially after the second glass of wine. They had brought wine with them, and it was very nice indeed, so expensive it even had a cork in it. I pretended airily that I drink wine with corks all the time, but you know I don’t, and our usual fare comes in a box which says Red. Asda., and nothing else, so it was especially splendid. Mark did not refill our glasses after the second one because we have got to get up in the morning, but it was so nice I don’t think we would even have had a hangover.
It was lovely, the sort of evening that has got to end long before you have finished talking, and you do not at all want to go to bed, but of course we have got to, it is where I am going to now because of getting up tomorrow.
I feel very contented, full of good wine and tasteless dinner.
Away to bed.
