I am afraid that life has become rather uneventful.
Of course I do not mind this in the least. I work myself into such a flappy tizz when life is crammed full of thrilling adventures that uneventful is just fine with me. Dull, especially coming hot on the heels of almost a whole week in Cambridge, is absolutely perfect.
Regrettably, however, it makes for very unexciting diary entries. These pages could no longer be described as stuffed with Cliff Hangers.
Of course they could never really have been described as stuffed with cliff hangers, not even during their most exciting moments. The most exciting they have ever been was probably the pages when the reader was left quivering with anxiety as to whether we would run out of money before the weekend or whether we might be able to squeeze out enough spare cash for the purchase of some daffodils and a bottle of decent red.
Fortunately it is the weekend already and I have actually got some daffodils, which are just opening now and which are making me feel very happy, there is something gloriously bright and clean about daffodils which makes you feel newly encouraged about life.
I haven’t bought any wine because obviously I wouldn’t squander my cash on something quite so hedonistic in Mark’s absence, we will save that moment until he gets back. Also I drank more than enough to be able to consider myself last week and am beginning to feel gloomily rotund again, and so am trying to like living on apples and porridge until my waistline diminishes a bit.
In fact we have actually got some cash as well, because after some moments of anxious trepidation, Mark’s employer has finally coughed up some cash and we are solvent again, which I don’t mind telling you is something of a relief.
Despite being more or less solvent, of course I am out at work anyway. Mark has suggested several times this week that I take the evening off, but it would just feel too wicked and decadent for words. I am quite sure that I ought to be able to manage looking after one single person and two dogs without needing to take time off work to do it, it isn’t as if any of us care about having properly cooked dinners or anything, but it is still quite busy and somehow manages to fill an awful lot of the day.
In fact today’s diary entry is not going to be very exciting because what I have done is dashed about getting all of my daily tasks done, after which I made a cup of tea and went to try and make some headway with my current story.
This is, as you know, nearly finished, and it is now a bit more nearly finished even than it was yesterday, although not nearly enough, it is desperately slow going. I am currently writing my way through a dramatic bit, which I always hate writing, a hangover from childhood experiences of trying to write thrilling scenes at which everybody, regrettably, laughed. Hence I am ploughing my way through my heroine’s various misadventures, uncomfortably conscious that the line to be walked between the dramatic and the ridiculous is exceedingly narrow, and that I am within a hair’s breadth of landing with a thump on the wrong side.
Despite having had most of the afternoon to scowl at the screen, with a happy break in the middle to meet my friend Amanda on the Zoom thingy, I still only managed a couple of thousand words, and I am going to have to write a very lot more of them before I have finished. My poor heroine is still braving her terrible fate, and I have got so fed up of trying to find new ways of describing her trembling hands that I dumped her to put up with it by herself for the evening, and came out to work.
I have made smoked mackerel sandwiches for my picnic tonight. They are so splendid that I am having to fight the urge to go home and make some more, even though I am not hungry in the least.
Sometimes life does not need to be exciting to be very happy indeed.
