Apart from creeping anxieties about the world turning into a baking, arid desert, and water becoming the new currency, this sunshine is marvellous.
I have been outside in the garden today with no extra jumpers on at all.
Really true. Clad only in my vest, shirt, heavyweight jeans and just one single jumper, I have been outdoors for almost the whole of the day.
I have cut the grass on the front lawn in order that people walking past the house do not think we are idle ne’er do wells. I weeded the flower beds and put down slug pellets. I do not know if David Attenborough has said anything upsetting about slug pellets yet, it would be tiresome to have to feel guilty about that as well as everything else. Number Two Daughter has been watching his recent series, she cried about some walruses falling off a cliff. Probably she has got hormones, but it does not encourage me to watch it. I shall stick to A Game Of Thrones, which I can watch without feeling the need to apologise to every other creature on the planet for accidentally being born a person when there are already too many of us.
I have made some reparations to Mother Nature, however. We discovered today that the box of dog hair we left as a present for the birds has all disappeared and is now, presumably, lining comfortable nests ready for tiny starlings and crows. We watched the crows this afternoon, they were raiding paper towels from the skip outside the builder’s. They were making gallant efforts at flying with them, but clearly it was very difficult indeed, and they bobbed about all over the place, and had to keep having rests to get their breath back. Nest building must be such hard work, there are sticks all over the place from failed attempts to jam them underneath everybody’s gutters.
When the front garden was properly presentable I made some soap. Obviously I did not do this in the garden, but it needed doing and so I had to forgo the sunshine for half an hour. It worked absolutely perfectly, obviously, because it is just for us and not intended to be presents for people. The Law Of Soap Manufacture says that soap will go wrong and overflow and go lumpy every single time that you make it from November onwards. The rest of the year it can be silky-smooth and creamy and only you will ever know.
After the soap I dived back out into the garden.
Mark has made us a new back gate. I can’t remember if I have told you about this or not. It is a work of immense creativity, because we are on a budget, and hence it has been cobbled together from old pallets donated by the builder’s merchant and also the builder opposite. All of the timber work in the yard is the same, which seems to work just fine.
Today we took the gate down and I painted it blue.
The intention is that eventually I will paint a picture on it, which I might if I get round to it. I am supposed to be painting leaves on the bottom of the stairs, but I have become bored with that and not done anything to it for ages. I am trying to muster the enthusiasm, because once I actually start doing it, I enjoy myself, painting makes me feel very contented and happy with my world: only somehow it is mostly too difficult to get my paints out.
If this sunshine carries on I don’t think I will have that problem. I like being outside when it is not grey and miserable.
Painting in the sunshine.
There is no finer occupation.
LATER NOTE: I did not go to work. I have spent the evening with my friend Elspeth, whose family have all gone away. We have not had an evening to ourselves for ages, and it has been ace. Going to bed feeling pleased with the world.
