Cloistered

I am still in my cloistered solitude.

I like it very much. Of course I miss Mark, and even the dogs, a bit, but I will be sorry when it comes to an end and I have got to depart from the hallowed portals to the not-terribly-academic climate of taxi driving. It is lovely to be in a place where everybody has an earnest expression and thinks that philosophical analysis is important.

Not that I have seen many Everybodys. I have spent almost all of today writing my story by myself in my cell. I woke up and got dressed and sat at my desk. That was everything. One could not ask for a more perfect start to the day. I did not bother with laundry or conversation, dog-emptying or visiting the Post Office. I simply sat down and composed myself into an attitude of contemplative creativity.

Obviously in between I read the newspaper and tried not to look at Facebook.

Still I got plenty written, and was almost sorry when lunchtime came around and I had to go and meet my tutor.

We have devised the most splendid system of tutoring possible, in that instead of sitting demurely staring at one another across an office desk, we met up for lunch, with wine, and promptly talked our heads off for two hours. I think I must be fortunate in having possibly the nicest, most encouraging tutor in the academic universe, because I came away from the meeting entirely convinced of my own genius and determined to write more before bedtime.

She is also clever and observant and very interesting to listen to. More, she had gone through everything I had written and covered it in very useful and copious notes. Better still, they were right. I have one tutor at the moment whom I privately think is a bit of a muppet, and whose opinion I would ignore even if they were telling me the time whilst looking at an Apple Watch. This tutor is not at all in the same mould. She is sharp and helpful and has already published lots of books.

The time passed too quickly. I could have stayed there all afternoon, but we both had other places to go, and regretfully, eventually we had to part, and I had to pedal like mad to get back in time for my next meeting, which was with a student assessor who assessed me and agreed that I was indeed a student, after which I returned to my contemplation.

I had just returned to my cell when the fire alarm went off, and we all had to go and hang around outside the porters’ lodge until the student who had forgotten about the toast under the grill had been suitably reprimanded by an irate porter and we were all allowed to return. I had not been terribly alarmed by it, and had delayed the Immediate Exit Do Not Pass Go Do Not Collect Two Hundred Pounds, to dress in shoes and socks and a warm jersey, and to retrieve everything I did not wish to be incinerated, but most of the rest of the students are young, and docile, and were standing around shivering in little huddles, in bare feet and vests. It is nice to have grown up.

I was pleased to return to my cell, and returned to my story with relish.

It is probably just as well I am doing so much sitting around. It is helping to compensate for the frantic cycling I am doing all the rest of the time. As you may have noticed, I am not one of life’s natural cyclists. In fact, I think I am more probably one of life’s natural grumpy taxi drivers, and my new method of transport is leaving me with decidedly wobbly legs. Cycling is a lot harder than driving. There is no mirror to look behind oneself, which means that any anxiety about anything approaching from the rear can only be offset by a death-defying glance over one’s shoulder, probably accompanied by a wobbly swerve all over the road. Trying to do the waving thing to indicate which way one intends to go is even worse, because a hand actually has to be removed from its steely grip on the handle bars and wagged about perilously in the air. So far I have not been squished by a bus, but there is still time.

I am going to go. I am going to write a bit more before I retire to bed.

I will see you tomorrow.

PS. I know what a cloister is. It is like the part of Hogwarts where Harry Potter is always getting collared by Snape. Still it is a splendidly evocative word so I have applied it to the covered walkway bit outside Lucy Cavendish, which does not count really because of the lack of medieval splendour, but I don’t care, it is my diary and I can say what I want.