I am sorry to tell you that I am not very well, and so my enthusiasm for composing pages and pages of literary prose has pretty much dwindled to None At All.
I am still on the taxi rank, obviously.
Despite this I am not very well. I have got the shivery hot feeling that you get when you have got a high temperature and all of your skin feels as though somebody has given it a good rub with a piece of 40 grit.
Everything hurts.
Even the bits that are all right are hurting.
I have not done anything today. I did not even empty the dogs. Fortunately, thank goodness, thank goodness, Lucy and Jack are staying with me, and they went off for a cheery yomp over Wansfell, which wore the dogs out sufficiently for them hardly to budge off their cushion whilst I was getting ready for work.
I was relieved to see them depart, the dogs, that is, not Lucy and Jack. I hung the washing outside and collapsed back into bed, where I stayed, wallowing in dreary self-pity until it was time to get ready for work.
I had peculiar dreams, probably caused by a combination of the high temperature and my current reading matter, which is Prince Harry’s right royal whinge Spare. I have not bought this. I got it out of the library by means of compensating for them not having Rory Stewart’s far more interesting memoir, and which I did want to read but for which I will have to wait because somebody else is reading it at the moment.
All the same I have long held such a dim view of Prince Harry that I thought it was only fair to give him the opportunity to speak up for himself, so I borrowed it.
Once you get over the peculiarity of somebody referring to our dear departed Queen as Granny, it is fairly unexceptional, except that for somebody whose life has presented him with unimaginable opportunities to do absolutely anything that interests him, he really does grumble a lot.
I have not yet got to the bit where he meets Meghan Markle. I might stop before I get there. Some things are really too much to be borne, and on the whole I might sleep better at nights if I stick to Stephen King and his horror stories.
I have not had much time to read anything for the last day or two, because the sunshine has brought an influx of tourists, and we have been busy. This was not fun with a sore throat and the occasional burst of shivering, and I regret to say that my patience with customers has diminished even below its usual monumentally minimal levels. The sore throat is making it difficult to talk, and so every stupidly pointless enquiry about whether or not I might have been busy has made me very inclined to growl in response.
I am growling anyway, of course, because of the sore throat.
I am going to stop writing things and go away and feel sorry for myself.
If I am not here tomorrow you will know that I have got beyond merely wallowing in self-pity and am probably thoroughly immersed in it.
I am rather hoping that I will be better.
