Today I am feeling Positive About Life.
I am encouraged and cheerful, the universe is beginning to feel like a splendid place again.
There are, I think, several reasons for this. The first, possibly, is that we are approaching the pagan celebration of Imbolc, otherwise known as Spring’ll Be Here In A Bit Festival. It is not that I am feeling overwhelmed with the pagan urge to dance around without my thermal vest on, nor to light bonfires, our firewood pile can jolly well go into the stove where it dries the washing and heats the water. It is simply that the air smells as though the spring might truly be on its way. There are new green shoots in places, mostly under the litter that has blown into our front garden during the horrible dark days of winter, but today was mild and warm and bright. The sun shone without that dazzling headache-inducing glare of winter, and the fells smelled of sheep, and hay, instead of just of mud.
The second reason, by the way, is that we had a night off last night and then went to bed early. We ate sufficient curry and rice and chocolate to make anybody feel comfortably rounded, after which we slept for ten hours.
I felt marvellous when I woke up, even though the first thing I had to do today was go to the dentist. I did not go straight away. We loitered about in bed having a cup of coffee. We have not had the time to do this for ages, and it was splendid. The dogs are allowed to leap up on to the bed if we are having coffee in it, albeit on the top of a large towel preventing contact between their usually grubby selves and our often-laundered sheets, and they were beside themselves with the joyous excitement of such an almost-forgotten happiness, wagging and growling and baring their teeth in broad grins until we had to compel them to desist. Drinking coffee becomes messy when there are two dogs having a wrestling match in your lap.
I have stopped having coffee in bed now that the first thing I do is go for a walk, because regrettably there are no bathroom facilities on the top of the fells, and we have missed it, the coffee, not the bathroom, obviously. It is restful to loaf about in bed, watching the comings-and-goings in the road outside and gossiping about one’s neighbours.
Eventually I had to get up, later than I should have because I was enjoying the idleness so much, and was obliged to run all the way to the dentist’s surgery, where I discovered that I have got a cracked filling which has got to be replaced. Fortunately the replacement was not today, although I am not looking forward to it, I am the most shocking coward about the dentist. She blew some cold air on to the tooth, which practically made me jump out of the seat, at which point she grinned and said this was a good thing because it showed that the tooth was not dead.
It is jolly well not a good thing on winter mornings, I can tell you, when smiling is completely out of the question.
Even the dentist was not able to blight my good spirits, and when I escaped I trotted off for my walk on the fells, after visiting the bathroom, obviously, whilst Mark rewired the taxi and took it off for The sequel to its MOT. I am pleased to tell you it passed, and I now have a law-abiding taxi for the next few months, which was yet another encouraging prospect.
I got on with my curtain-manufacture then, they are almost finished, whilst Mark spent the rest of the day faffing about with firewood, with which our yard is currently so full that we can barely squeeze past it to get out of the gate. This is because somebody at the other end of the street is knocking their outbuildings down, and we have inherited all of the roof timbers, so I will not need to worry about firewood in the least whilst Mark is away this time. He has promised to cut and stack it all before he goes, which is going to keep him busy, because he only has one day left now.
Another couple of nights and I will be by myself again.
It does seem to have gone quickly.
