The rain has stopped, and I have had a very much happier day.
It is very pleasant indeed to walk on the hills without rain stinging my face, and this morning I left off my hat and positively strolled.
It was a good job it was not raining, because Rosie found something dead and stopped to eat it. We lost her completely and had to go back down the long steep hill again to search for her, before eventually she realised that she was in big trouble and came sloping back trying to look as though she had been under my feet all the time. I had to walk all the way back again and told her that she was wicked. Also she smelled of dead thing, which did nothing for her popularity.
There were lots of skylarks, all trilling their avian threats at one another, and telling other skylarks that they were both good-looking and available, like a sort of airborne Tindr.
The water has receded a little, and the stepping stones across the streams are visible again. A couple of days ago they were both submerged and lethally slippery, which added a certain spice to an outing. It is exciting to know that the smallest misjudgement, several miles from anywhere, could lead to a thorough drenching and possibly pneumonia on the journey home.
We had our Night of Idleness last night. We bought a plastic tub of salty fried rice each, and watched a film, and it was splendid.
The film was surprisingly good, especially since it was made by Americans. I am not racist about the Americans, but their films do tend to be very predictable. This one was called The Martian, and it was about a chap who had accidentally been left behind on Mars when all of his mates buzzed off home, which to my mind is even more neglectful than leaving one of your children on the bus. There was some spurious justification given for this, because they had been faffing about outside until the very last minute and then thought he was dead etc, etc, but really it was a bit rubbish of them.
Anyway the chap left behind was not dead, and after some DIY surgery, which really I would rather not have watched whilst I was having my dinner, he pulled himself together and decided to have a one-man colony on Mars until the Americans, helped a little bit by every other nation on Earth, could get back to rescue him, and you won’t be in the least surprised to hear what happened in the end, although I won’t tell you in case you ever decide to watch it.
There were all of the usual American themes, we all knew who was going to save the day because he was young, black and amusingly crazy, and obviously the space commander was a beautiful woman, and there was a very tiresome last-minute jeopardy when they all nearly lost one another in space having taken a Million To One Chance That Might Just Work, but apart from that as films go I have seen very much worse. Also Sean Bean was in it, and no film with Sean Bean can be bad.
This occupied our evening with great contentment, and we sat around for a little while afterwards, knowing we were late to bed but preferring to contemplate the vastness of the universe for a little while longer, until finally we took the dogs for a late-night emptying and went to bed. At least, Oliver went to bed. I went upstairs for my tiresome night-time routine of cold showers and cleaning and standing on one leg. Sometimes I know I am a bit mental but do not seem to be able to stop.
When I came back down off the fells this morning I cleaned out my taxi, which was becoming uncomfortably necessary because of the dogs and the sawdust and Rosie’s scent of dead thing, and having had half of the fell stuck to my boots. It is beautifully clean now, and I am almost looking forward to work.
It is nearly time. I am going to have to go and get the washing in.
I can do this because it has finally stopped raining.
Until tomorrow.
