We were in the conservatory yesterday afternoon when we heard a peculiar tapping sound in the yard.
Of course we both knew straight away what it was, but neither of us wished to create a disturbance by going to look, and so it was with the greatest of caution that I crept to the back door and hid behind the enormous Swiss Cheese plant to see.
It was a thrush, industriously bashing a misfortunate snail on a corner of one of the bricks. She glanced up at me indifferently, and carried on with what she was doing, so I crept away.
I found a snail shell with a large hole in it by the back gate later. It had been thoroughly emptied, and I hoped for the snail’s sake that it had been quick, whilst knowing perfectly well that it probably wasn’t.
It is a cruel world.
The Bank Holiday has arrived, and Windermere is bursting with excited people in their holiday clothes.
Also the Weather Gods are back. You can tell this because it is just starting to rain.
We have had the longest spell of dry weather that I can ever remember, but it has concluded on the eve of the holiday. I don’t mind this, but everybody who is still arriving with their children tagging reluctantly behind them complaining that they can’t see Blackpool Tower anywhere, is going to have a sad time of it.
Mark has been painting the front of the house all day, because the most recent painting chap has turned out to be as hopelessly idle as the last one. He had hoped to get all of the undercoat on before the rain started, and I think that he might have managed it, because the house is a sombre shade of grey. Its beautiful magenta-and-green top coat is still waiting in the cupboard, as if it were a low-budget dance hall performer with a shiny costume to wear on stage later, but currently slopping around in ancient supermarket underwear that has been washed too many times in the same load as the jeans.
I am looking forward to having a brilliantly painted house but I am feeling mildly uncomfortable about my taxi, which has an MOT on Tuesday, and which has the sort of loud rattle which makes patronising middle-aged-men make explanatory and unnecessary comments about the suspension, as if I would not have noticed a newly troubling clunk in a car in which I drive hundreds of miles every week. Mostly they are wrong about the cause of it anyway. I forget what is wrong with it, although Mark has told me, and even ordered the bit from Autoparts.
He says he will fix it this weekend. I hope that he doesn’t forget.
I have occupied my day with preparations for the expected rain. Mark swept the chimney and cleaned out the boiler yesterday, and so today I have refilled the fireplace with logs. No matter what the Weather Gods do they will stay wonderfully dry now that they are in the house. Also I have sawn up the stack of firewood which has slowly amassed in the back yard and piled it under cover in the log stack. There is a roof over this, but I have covered it all with plastic anyway.
When it rains every day I am not nearly as organised as this, it is much easier to be thoughtful and wise now that wet weather has become a special occasion. I do hope that it turns out to be global warming and that it stops again quickly. I have been enjoying the drought.
I washed everything whilst we still had the drought. We have now got clean towels and clean clothes, beautifully dried in the last of the afternoon sunshine. I considered doing the sheets, but that was too much of a step into recklessness, Monday is Clean Sheets Day, and so we will just have to hope for benevolent fortunes.
Monday is going to be a day for lots of clean sheets, because not only are the Mrs. Number Two Daughters here, but Lucy has also arrived. She is on her own, Jack having stayed behind to fix her car for its MOT, an arrangement with which I have a great deal of sympathy, and she and the Number Two Daughters are going to go off walking tomorrow, if the rain holds off sufficiently.
It is absolutely splendid to have them all at home, the house feels very busy and full. They are here until Sunday.
It is most unlike my usual solitary existence.
I am enjoying it very much.
