Couples

We are celebrating the return of the conquering hero.

We have done this with mango butter chicken and pilau rice, washed down with a bottle of the Indian Restaurant’s finest Merlot, all accompanied by pictures of the very important Muslim things Jay the waiter is going to see when he goes on his pilgrimage, and an assurance that probably God has forgotten all of the rascally things he did in his youth. The nice thing about going to the Indian restaurant early is that there is never anybody else there and we can sit and catch up on interesting news, gossip and chat whilst we dip our poppadoms in the sauce.

I learned some very interesting things in the process, and shall be sticking them into my Dissertation to make me sound as though I have got a broad knowledge of multiculturalism. I am not sure the waiter at the Prince of India is exactly an academic expert so I shall have to do some fact-checking first.

Indeed, I have had a day of Dissertation pondering, because I have been in University classes for much of the day, discussing our different literary outpourings.

I like doing this, although am unconvinced that there is very much point in it. Everybody tells me what they think about my work, I explain why I don’t intend to change any of it, and then we move on. Obviously there were lots of things that I pointed out about everybody else’s work that they ought to change, but some of them just don’t have the confidence of their convictions and just say Oh All Right Then and put a line through it.

I do not think I would be a very good collaborative author.

After that I had a Zoom meeting with my friend Amanda for exactly the same purpose, and explained to her why I was not going to change anything as well. She is studying for a different MSt, and we get together occasionally to talk about what we are doing, and read one another’s outpourings. It was splendid to have occupied so much of the day simply drinking tea and talking about interesting things and still feel as though I have been working, it must be marvellous to be a career academic, perhaps I really should have listened at school.

I shouldn’t really. If I had an academic career I would not be able to eat half of the number of chocolate buttons that I do now. I would be too fat to get out of the office chair. A life of Dog Emptying and Firewood Sawing is a jolly good thing.

I did not do any firewood sawing today, because Mark did it.

It is very splendid to have him home, not least because not only did he saw up the firewood, he has tidied the shed and replaced some bits of my exhaust. These are not bits of the old exhaust, which had practically dissolved into a heap of brown crumbly bits in the yard, but some shiny new bits to go in its place. Not all of the bits have arrived yet, and so it is a lengthy operation, but it is going well. Mark says that it has had a hole in it for ages, and that it had been resting on the axle which was not helping with the MRI scan noise, and things will be much better when it is all done. He also thinks that he knows what the squeak might be. He did tell me but I was not paying proper attention and now I have forgotten.

I did take the dogs out, and it was a splendid morning. The sun was positively beaming, although it was still raining, obviously, and we trekked happily over the fells pludging through the mud with enthusiasm. It is truly springtime, and the tarn was full of little frogs enthusiastically frolicking with one another. I counted more than a dozen couples, some of them were amorous mummy-and-daddy-frogs-to-be, and some of them were squabbling aspirational daddy frogs, whilst the putative mummy frogs looked on without much interest. I could have watched them for ages, except whenever they realised I was looking, they all turned around and looked at me, so I thought it would be better for the continuance of the species if I buzzed off.

Lots of skylarks but not a peep from my unidentified singing visitor.

Probably he has buzzed off to drier climes.