Not much diary this evening I am afraid.
It is Bank Holiday weekend, and I am busy. I do not even know if there is going to be much time to write here tomorrow. I have been trying to find a minute to write in here since seven o’clock. It is now nearly eleven, and the first time I have stopped for long enough to write anything at all.
Mark has gone. We got up late, because of not going to bed until half past five, and then faffed about lighting the fire, because the weather was dreadful.
The weather stayed dreadful. It has rained, and rained, and rained. I am very glad I am not here on my holidays.
I had lent all of my waterproof things to Lucy for her camping weekend, and did not feel at all enthusiastic about taking the dogs for their customary lope across the fells this morning.
I was just about to grit my teeth and set off anyway when Mark remembered that in a fit of extravagance, last spring I had purchased a beautiful Barbie-pink macintosh, in case of showery emergency whilst attending our various middle-class events which regular readers will recall. It had not rained, and I have not worn it, and so it had been carefully packaged away and hung in a neatly labelled bag in the loft.
He went to get it.
I did not at all want to wear it to empty the dogs. It is smooth and clean and fresh, without a single bramble-tear or muddy paw print anywhere, and I objected very hard.
Mark said there was no point in owning a macintosh and then getting soaked on a wet morning, and the point of being a clothes-owner was to be dressed in them.
It was such a terribly wet morning that in the end I agreed, and set off, cautiously trying to make sure that my lovely smart coat didn’t touch anything at all, especially the dogs, who were leaping in and out of puddles and wrestling and rolling up and down through the black, slimy mud.
It turned out to be a very lovely macintosh. It was still raining, and it has rained so very much that everywhere was sodden. The little damp patch halfway up the path had turned into a miniature lake, and the becks were overflowing, pouring down every path and slope in mighty torrents, but I stayed dry.
I mean relatively dry, obviously. I did not need to wring out my underwear when I got home.
I slipped and slithered and slid, and pludged through ankle-deep mud, but the bit of me that was under the macintosh stayed perfectly dry.
I was wearing shorts, because of not wanting to finish up with wet trousers, and the water ran down my legs and filled my boots. I had to empty them when I got home. They are still drying by the fire now.
It is a most inclement bank holiday.
I am, however, pleased to announce that I did not ruin my lovely macintosh at all. It is still dripping a little, but it is almost as flawlessly perfect as it ever was. I shall be very pleased to wear it again.
It is very odd to be ploughing up the fellsides disguised as Wuthering Heights Barbie, although fortunately I did not meet a single soul this morning. I had thought to save such an unusually perfect garment for smart occasions but it might be nice to wear it again some time.
I have been interrupted about a million times whilst trying to write this, and I am fed up of it. I am going to desist.
I will write again.
