We have bought a wood burning stove.
I am not very excited about this because obviously I have already got a wood burning stove. However Lucy and Jack, into whose living room it will be being lugged, are very pleased with themselves indeed, and have spent the entire afternoon contemplating the perfect flavour of tiles upon which it could be mounted.
They have decided on green and gold. I approve of this choice because of its middle-class echoes of Harrods, and its long-faded memories of grandeur, although I am not sure that Harrods is allowed to count any more because of the rascally behaviour of its now-deceased proprietor.
I do not know if you cease to be middle class if you behave badly, I am not sure that it is the sort of thing that can be stripped from you, like a knighthood, and I suppose it is a bit academic whether Mr. Fayed was ever really middle class in the first place.
However, Lucy and Jack have settled upon green and gold middle-class tiles, and a beautiful black wood-burning stove with brass handles. They almost bought a green one but then we discovered that green cost two hundred quid more. In any case it would be impossible to match the paint colour once it developed rusty bits. Certainly they would not sell the perfect paint match in the ironmonger’s up the road. He sells paint but without a great deal of variation, mostly it is black, white and magnolia, all of which would look weird painted on to rusty patches on a green stove.
Mark has not come home yet. Indeed, I am not sure that he is even off his oil rig yet, and it is almost time for me to go to work. He telephoned this morning sounding a bit disconsolate, and explained that the helicopter had not yet turned up and so he was macarooned until it did.
It sounds as though he will not be getting home until the very middle of the night. I am disappointed about this, not least because it means that I have got no excuse to shirk off work, although I suppose the cash will come in useful.
Still, he will come home in the end, which will be lovely, and we can always have tomorrow night to be idle.
It has been a dismally damp sort of day in the Lake District. I left my waterproof coat in Bath, and so until we go down there again I am obliged to put up with the rain. I got wet this morning. Not very wet, just the irritating sort of wet which is wet enough to be uncomfortable but not quite wet enough to justify a complete change into dry clothes.
After that I did all of the usual Monday things. You know what they are. There is the dusting, and the clean sheets, and the hoovering, and I even watered the conservatory. This is sprouting Swiss cheeseplant flowers like I could not have imagined. There were six of them at the last count. Each one opens up to reveal a mildly disconcerting fruit, shaped like a rigidly straight banana but covered with dragons’ scales. I am endlessly curious about these, and hope they survive long enough to be eaten. It would be terrible if we had a frost before the heating is on in there and everything expired.
There are some tomatoes as well, but I have eaten most of those already.
I am going to go to work. Lucy and Jack are planning an evening settled in front a film, and I am going to go and earn some cash so that tomorrow night we can shirk as well.
I will see you tomorrow.
PS. I am still reading Rory Stewart’s splendid book. It is much better than Prince Harry’s dirge. In fact, I think I have enjoyed it more than most things I have read since being captivated by the high principles and unflinching commitment to duty of Jo of the Chalet School, many years ago.
It is not exactly dissimilar.
