I have had a Day Of Slacking.
By this I do not mean that I was wearing the sort of trousers that were popular in the nineteen seventies, although how those differed from any other sort of trousers I am not exactly sure. I have looked at pictures and they do not seem loose or over-sized in any way and so it is a mystery to me how they gained their name. In any case from what I can remember they were largely made of polyester, and so it seems to me that they would have been better called Statics, because of their startlingly electrifying effect.
Anyway, I was not wearing those. I was wearing my comfortable orange corduroy dungarees, just as usual, and in fact the lady at the till in Sainsbury’s complimented me on their splendidness. I do not think she can have been looking very closely, because they are my everyday ones and they are splashed with bleach and the occasional smear of paint, and apart from an overall pleasing orangyness and general stoutness-concealant, they are not exactly lovely.
In fact what I have been doing was idling.
I did not mean to do idling. I started the day in a virtuous spirit of industry. I cooked pancakes for Mark and Oliver’s breakfast, and they were just about to set off to haul firewood over at the farm when the dogs started to bark and Elspeth turned up.
After that I booted Mark and Oliver out with some haste, and made a cup of tea.
It was the most idle I have been for ages and it was splendid.
Instead of rushing about making mayonnaise or hoovering the landing, I sat and drank tea.
I should really have hoovered the landing. Mark had bought another sheet of plasterboard this morning, and he and Oliver were busy lugging it up to the loft when Elspeth arrived. This was tiresome because it turned out to be far too big to go around the bend in the stairs, and so it had to be taken back outside again and cut in half. I do not know if you have carried much plasterboard around your carpets, but I can tell you that it leaves a little floury trail behind it everywhere it goes, like a sort of construction-flavoured Hansel and Gretel.
I am sorry to tell you that we have no news on Lucy’s house crisis, as far as I am aware the vendor spoke to their solicitor today, but what the solicitor has advised I do not know. My guess is that she has said Leave It With Me And I Will Find Out, which is the sort of thing people usually say when it is already Friday afternoon and they can’t be bothered. I would say that.
However in better news her contract from Oldham Police has turned up, and it is for more money than she is earning at the moment, which is magnificent. Also it means that if she has a house to buy she can get a mortgage, so that if finer still.
In the meantime whilst all of the day’s events were unfolding around me, well not exactly around me, in Lucy’s life in Kettering and away at the farm for Mark and Oliver, I sat in the conservatory with Elspeth and drank not one, but two cups of tea, and we agreed cheerfully that it is a Wicked World and Not Like When I Was Young, which was immensely satisfactory.
It was jolly good to do nothing.
Once she had gone of course I had to belt around the house like a very hasty late sort of person, hoovering and getting dinners ready and trying to look as though my price might be above rubies, which frankly, today, it wouldn’t have been, even allowing for our current rate of inflation.
I will have to try again tomorrow.
