We have done it. It is done.
We have refilled our shelves.
We were so anxious that we would do it properly that we set an alarm for this morning in order to maximise the amount of day available for careful considerations and fridge contemplation. It went off at eight o’clock, which felt like the middle of the night, and we lay in bed for a few confused moments, trying to recollect what had been so important.
It was a horrid day. I do not mean horrid in the sense of shopping being a ghastly occupation, although we all know that it is, I have never, ever understood the masochistic urge to go shopping simply to wander about looking at things even when you don’t need anything. This is about as therapeutic as trying to fight off a swarm of ravening bank managers, which is what will almost certainly happen afterwards in any case.
I mean horrid in the sense of having the most vile weather anybody could probably imagine. I do not mean snow, snow is not vile. Snow, despite its inconvenience, or perhaps because of its inconvenience, is wonderfully magical and liberating, because everybody knows that everything else stops when your garden path has disappeared.
It rained. Not just the usual, unremarkable, drizzly rain, but the sort of businesslike rain that intends to rinse your village away into the lake, which has in any case crept up to your very doorstep. It came with a blustery wind, swirling icy raindrops into your face from every possible angle, no matter where you turned your head, and tugging down the trees, some of which are still poking out across the roads even now. The road into Kendal was flooded with some cars stuck in it, and we had to start the day with a trip to the tip to dispose of four tyres. We were drenched to the skin almost before we started.
We went into the centre of Kendal and splashed through the little river that was hurtling determinedly down the road towards the huge river at the bottom, until our feet were sodden and squelchy. We rushed into TK Maxx and stood for a moment just inside the doorway, shaking raindrops from our hair and gasping in the sudden warmth.
I could have stayed in TK Maxx all day, because even non-therapeutic gazing at things that we couldn’t afford would have been more fun than braving the rapids of the one-way system and the freezing downpour, but of course we couldn’t. I am pleased to tell you that I bought some very lovely new socks, to facilitate warm feet this winter, and some soap, which is always one of my favourite things to purchase, it is very satisfactory to be the owner of a pleasing scent and a claim on respectability
We faffed about for ages, but of course in the end we finished up in Asda. I will draw a veil over that particular horror. Let me tell you, it was expensive and grim. For some reason every single thing we bought was twice as costly as it had been this time last year, but still bore price stickers saying Money Off Bargain, which it clearly wasn’t, and I complained about this loudly all the way round, just in case anybody else hadn’t noticed.
In the end it was done, and we sat in a long line of traffic to creep through a flooded bit, which Mark simply circumvented by driving on the pavement, you can do this if you have a taxi sign. We unpacked everything and collapsed with cups of tea to admire the newly refilled shelves.
This was a magnificent feeling, like being competent squirrels at the beginning of winter. We do not need to fear the collapse of civilisation for quite some time. We have shelves full of jars of coffee and olives and mustard and pasta.
Eventually we stirred ourselves, although not because we were bored, I think I will not get bored of looking at full shelves for some time to come. I do not think anybody should be allowed to use anything.
After that Mark went to work and I went to collect Oliver’s girlfriend from the station. The trains had all stopped running, and lots of people were trying to persuade me to take them in the taxi, but of course I was collecting Elise so I couldn’t, although in the end I nobly agreed to let a chap share her taxi and pay half of the fare, so that was a happy result.
Elise is here now. It is very nice to have her company. The dogs have been obliged to stop whimpering outside her bedroom door and go and get in their own bed. They are downcast about this, but sometimes it is just a dog’s life.,
I am washed out. I am going to bed.
