It has been terribly wet.
Fortunately when we came to put on our boots for this morning’s walk they were still sodden from yesterday’s walk, and the walk the day before, and so we did not get wet feet on the fells. Our feet were wet already, despite our boots having been arranged over the top of the stove overnight, with a dehumidifier firmly pointed in their direction.
It was a nice walk anyway, in a dripping sort of way, although I am very glad I am not here on my holidays, it would be awful for my one and only determined trek up the fell sides to be rewarded only by a view of impenetrable grey gloom, interrupted by the determinedly cheerful singing of a solitary skylark.
We were not exactly sorry to get home, although the peeling off layers of sodden clothes and draping them all over the house to dry took almost as long as the walk itself. We brought in firewood, because we have lit the fire, and set about the day’s tasks, one of the first of mine being inspired by the discovery that yet again, Guffy had been indisposed.
She had guffed in my office In tray.
She is only a kitten and so I suppose she could be excused for reasoning that it was much the same sort of shape as a cat litter tray, even if it was full of a different sort of rubbish.
This one was even worse than the last. I was very saddened to lose the last of my University of Cambridge headed paper underneath a squidgy stream of guff, not that I ever used it much but I had been hoarding it against the improbable day when I ever needed to impress anybody. Also I had to cut several pages out of my payroll record keeping. I keep these records by hand, not so much because of a mistrust of the mighty Internet, but because of some misgivings that one day we might not be able to afford the online accounting software, and it might disappear into the ether along with all of our precious PAYE history.
That history has now gone up in smoke, making a rather unappetising smell in the road outside.
Ah well.
After that I turned my attention once again to our fast-approaching London adventure.
We had planned to meet with a friend of mine one evening whilst we are there, but this has now been changed, and instead we are going to meet for lunch. We are going to walk along the river and have a Shakespeare themed lunch next to the Globe theatre. I think this sounds very middle class, and so I am looking forward to it, how we are going up in the world.
I do not know what Shakespeare was likely to have eaten for his lunch, but since I am quite sure it was not crisps and beef burgers I expect it will be fine.
I considered going to the Globe, but it is dark until after we have gone home, when it is only showing Much Ado About Nothing anyway, and I do not feel terribly interested in seeing that again, having seen it on several occasions already, not least when Oliver played Benedick at school. This was an experience which I think even the Globe would find it hard to beat. Shakespeare is not nearly as thrilling when one is not bursting with anxious maternal pride all the way through.
Anyway, this left us with a spare evening. Obviously it would be shocking to waste a whole night on a trip to London, we don’t go there very often, and so I have booked tickets to see a play about Henry Irving, called Grace Pervades, which sounds even more middle class than a Shakespearian lunch, and better still, Voldemort is playing Henry Irving.
I am very excited about this as well.
We are going to have the most thrilling holiday.
I have started packing our T-shirts.
