I have had a moment of pure self-indulgent extravagance today, and I am feeling very pleased with my world.
Despite our current penury, I have lashed out our remaining cash in the reckless purchase of unadulterated luxury.
I have bought myself a new dustpan and brush.
The old brush had been used far too often for sweeping up hot embers out of the fireplace, and all of its bristles had begun to fuse together, like a nineteen seventies perm done by the apprentice. Also something misfortunate had happened to the dustpan so that when I swept dust into it, it somehow dodged out of the way and the dust just went underneath it.
I have been unhappy about the old one for some time. It is astonishing how many times in a day one notices a malfunctioning dustpan and brush.
This morning I resolved that today would be the day for some self-nurturing, since there is nobody else around requiring last night’s takings to be spent on sausages, and I marched determinedly into the ironmonger’s shop and chose another one, as a Happy Monday present for myself.
I was obliged to stand around the till for a while, discussing the absence of the camper van and explaining what Mark was doing in Aberdeen, but this is Windermere and one expects that. Really the only surprise there is that they didn’t know already.
I was so excited about it that I went straight home and swept the floors. This was a waste of time because I hadn’t brought any wood in for the fire, and half an hour later I had to do it again, but it was so satisfying that I did not mind in the least. Indeed, I swept, then mopped, then swept again, and then I did all of it again in the conservatory. It was entirely rewarding, and by the time I had finished there was hardly a speck of dust to be seen anywhere.
I needed to do it really, because I had been up over the fells with the dogs, and they had come home encrusted with mud, which promptly dried and crumbled off all over the place. It was a brilliant walk, the purpose of which was to think about the story I am writing, and which worked splendidly. I did not exactly write any of it, but I thought about it a very, very lot, for the first time in ages, which was almost as good.
It was a fine, clear day for a walk, with snow on the distant fells but none around Windermere, which was splendid, and a swirling blustery breeze, which also dried my washing, it being Clean Sheets Day, of course.
I had thought I might go for a walk at the side of the lake, which has the very definite advantage of being completely flat. I was down in Bowness anyway, because the lodger had popped in for a cup of coffee, and I had taken her back home afterwards, but there were so many people milling around having an inexplicable holiday in the February chill that there was not a single parking space anywhere at all, so I did not bother. We went for our usual walk over the fells. There was nobody milling around up there, just some cows. Rosie was frightened that they might eat her, and belted underneath them in the direction of the gate like a terrified ferret out of a warren in which he has just encountered the Black Rabbit of Inlé.
I was starving when I got back. I am trying not to eat junk food, which really is almost everything that I like, so I had cooked a pan of rice in readiness for that Jam Sandwich Moment, and had the superlative pleasure of a bowl of rice with Mark’s home-grown peas and some flaked salmon in the middle of the day, which felt almost as though I was on holiday. I felt thoroughly energised afterwards, and rushed around hoovering and making beds until it was time for work, which is, of course, where I am now.
I am having a very happy week, and I have got a new dustpan and brush. Better still I know they will stay perfect and unsullied at least until Friday when Mark gets back.
Probably their novelty will have worn off by then anyway.
