I had a very busy morning.
I took the dogs over the fells first, of course. I like to think this is because I am outdoorsy and virtuous but actually it is because it gets it over and done with, along the lines of Doing The Worst Job First.
I tried to enjoy it, but secretly I didn’t very much. The sun was shining, but low in the sky, so I had to squint to see anything, and there was a blustery, icy wind.
That was really not nice. I was wearing my shorts and a T shirt with a gilet, because of preferring to have fewer clothes which would need to have mud scraped off them afterwards, and it was jolly bracing, I can tell you. I was thoroughly braced to the marrow by the time I got down, although I had been striding along at a good pace.
Afterwards I went to Booths, and was mildly embarrassed when I brought the shopping into the kitchen and caught sight of my reflection in the mirror. All of my hair was standing on end from the wind. I was pink-eyed and scarlet-faced and peculiarly dressed, and looked like the sort of person I would hope crosses the road before they get to the taxi rank.
The wind and sunshine were a splendid combination for the washing, and it flapped magnificently, and that sentence led to a brief interruption when I glanced out of the window and recollected that it was still flapping magnificently, and needed bringing in. I brought it in and have spent the last few minutes shaking shivering insects out of it and folding it all up.
After all of that my job of the day was to saw up firewood. I stole a pallet out of somebody’s dustbin in the middle of the night last night. It was a massive industrial dustbin belonging to the restaurant at the end of the alley, and the pallet has been propped up next to it for the last few weeks. I would have stolen it before but thought they might be saving it for something, and couldn’t be sure they weren’t until I saw it in the dustbin.
It was a jolly nuisance to get out of the dustbin, I can tell you. They are heavier than they look.
Anyway, today I cut it up, along with some other bits of firewood-clutter that have been hanging about the yard for ages. It didn’t make an awful lot of difference to the wood pile, but it all helps to ease my conscience for when Mark gets home, it would be dreadful if he just thought I had been idle. I used the Barbie chainsaw to do it, what a lethally dangerous tool that is. It is so light you could use it for cutting up birthday cakes, and feels just about as dangerous, but it is not, it is a savage murderous implement, and really I should not have been vaguely waving it about next to my shorts.
Once it was all sawn up and I had made a massive mess although fortunately managed not to cut my legs off, some clearing up was in order. The yard was carpeted with leaves and sawdust and dotted around with forgotten bits of junk that I had just abandoned in passing, and about forty five milk bottles that the milkman keeps not remembering to take with him. This is because he turns up in the middle of the night when it is still dark and unless he trips over them he is not thinking about recycling, but probably about werewolves and vampires and zombies hiding in people’s sheds. I only think about that sort of thing if I have been reading an especially horrible sort of book. Prince Harry gave me the heebie-jeebies fairly thoroughly, but most people watch television and that is full of all sorts of nasty ideas for when you are creeping through the Library Gardens by yourself. Lots of my customers say to me: Aren’t you scared of the dark? and the answer is No.
I swept it all up and tidied it beautifully.
I have been meaning to do this for ages. You can’t see into anybody else’s garden from our houses, but the neighbour in the end house has got some scaffolding up and is mending his chimney, and he and his brother have been looking down at my mess with disapproval, so I was glad to have satisfied my honour again. It would be awful if they thought I did not believe in Good Order In Windermere.
It looks splendid now.
I will quite enjoy walking through it on my way out to work, which is where I am going now.
See you on Sunday.
