I am on the taxi rank, where in the spirit of filling the unforgiving minute, I have been sewing name tags into underpants and pyjamas, because obviously we are nearly at the beginning of a new term. I have had to stop now, because it is too dark, and so my next occupation is to write to you.
Name tapes are a tiresome job, but important. I make it tolerable by reminding myself that I am filling my children’s trunks with love for them to take back to school. I once told Oliver about this, that every time he saw a name tape sewn on to his clothes it meant that I loved him. I was sorry about this afterwards, because he told me that it had made him cry every time he put his socks on.
It is the cricket term. We have been organising cricket whites. I have taken out his rugby kit and his football kit, because this is his very last term at Aysgarth, and he will never need them again. Next time he plays rugby, it will be in the Gordonstoun strip. I will cut the name tags out of them, to be re-used next year, and the kit can go back to school for the second hand shop. This feels unexpectedly mournful, because the unforgiving minutes are ticking past, and we are drawing to the end of one of the happiest of times. Very soon Lucy will be gone for ever, and Oliver will be gone to Gordonstoun, and all of my children will be flown.
Obviously there is no point in cluttering up the house with outgrown rugby shirts instead. They will not in the least remind me of children. They will take up space in the loft and be forgotten and smell mouldy. It is sentimental twaddle and I should either ignore it or get a bigger house.
The day started rather splendidly, with a message from one of my already-flown children. Number Two Daughter has been reading Ben Elton’s new book, thousands of miles away in Australia. She wrote to tell me that it was jolly good, and she had put some cash in our bank so that I could buy it and read it as well. Since I hadn’t even known that he had written another book this was a very agreeable surprise. We all like Ben Elton’s books, our copies of them are all dog-eared and bashed from having been read by all of us in between customers, and hastily stashed between the seats when one turned up.
Obviously I clicked on to Amazon and bought it straight away, in case the bank decided that the cash would be better spent on something far less interesting. Its arrival will be something splendid to look forward to.
There was more sunshine today. It has been magnificently warm.
We watered the gardens, the poor hanging baskets were gasping with thirst. They are in a bit of a state anyway, because I lined them with some coir stuff, and the birds have pinched all of it that they can dig out, for keeping nests warm.
We thought that we needed to tidy the yard up a bit. It had become dusty and cluttered. It has got lots and lots of things in it that will be needed for building the conservatory, but not quite just yet, and there was hardly room to peg the washing out.
We created a rather satisfying sort of order.
We swept and tidied and stacked things until everywhere was neat and arranged in rows instead of chucked into heaps. Mark thinks he will be able to start putting the conservatory up soon, but he is being fantastically optimistic, because he won’t really. We will be so busy next week that there will be no chance at all, and even after that there is still plumbing to be done, because of putting the solar panel on the wall.
The tiresome, irritating shed is still there as well, but Mark has decided that it can stay there for a bit longer, because it will work like scaffolding whilst he is putting the solar panel up.
I have moved the plant pots round it so that I don’t hate it quite so much.
The bluebells are coming out. Everywhere is beginning to smell glorious again.
The yard feels lovely.
I can do some more painting tomorrow.
