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I did not go up the fell this morning because of being idle.

Also I had to go and visit the doctor.

It was not a real doctor. It was a Nurse Practitioner. He did all sorts of inconvenient unpleasant things. He made me stand on the scales and then looked concerned and asked me what sort of things we eat. I launched into a detailed description of mayonnaise and butter chicken and home made chocolate, and eventually he told me to stop because he said that it was making him feel hungry. He asked about drinking, and I lied convincingly, which made him nod approvingly, and then he poked a needle in my arm and made a bruise. Finally he made me stand against the wall and told me that I am five feet four inches tall. I was pleased about this because it is an inch taller than I thought I was, so maybe I have grown.

In the end he told me that I was in perfectly good health and that although I am round I am only portly and not obese or anything troubling, although if I felt like eating less home made fudge and cherry and coconut biscuits it would probably not be a bad idea. He added that I looked tired and ought to take more holidays and rest more.

I declined to take him up on any of these suggestions, although I did not climb up the fell when I got home.

Instead I summoned Oliver to help me and together we cleared out the conservatory. Oliver had to get dressed first.

This took most of the day.

The thinking behind this is that Mark is out at work almost all of the time at the moment. He is not getting round to doing anything apart from drinking wine and rubbing his sore knees. If I want a conservatory before the end of the week then I am going to have to do it myself.

I want to lay a floor.

We have got the pipes to lay in the floor but we have not done it. This has partly been because the conservatory is full of all of the junk we have not been able to put anywhere else.

Today Oliver and I piled it all on the top of the flower bed.

A picture is attached. You can hardly tell that there is a sofa and a dining table and some chairs on there. Getting them up there was a challenge. There was some swearing, and Oliver imagined us being crushed to death and only discovered when Daddy came home, when it would be too late.

We were not squished by a falling sofa in the end, although we got too giggly to lift it at one point when we started on the sort of joke that goes: what’s white and would kill you if it fell on you out of a tree?*  which is one of my favourite jokes. I am not good at jokes and have a repertoire of about four, but in their favour they still make me laugh every time, which is all that matters.

After that we moved all of the wood outside and stacked it on top of the trestles, and covered it with a plastic sheet.

There was a lot of wood.

There were some floorboards that Mark had thought he might use in the kitchen, but after I had moved them my skin twitched and itched, because they had been covered in horrid invisible mites. When Mark got home I explained that they were not going anywhere near the kitchen, not under any circumstances, and they would have to be firewood Without Further Delay, so we will have to buy some more. I do not mind this. I am reckless enough to secretly like the idea of shiny new timber, even if it is wasteful and gives me a Carbon Footprint.

The floorboards are black and mouldy and smell dreadful anyway.

In the end the whole conservatory was empty, and swept, and clean, and over the next few days we will lay the heating pipes. I do not know yet how we will do this. I think that I might put some sand down first, because we have got lots of that, and then concrete over the top. Mark thinks that this is a rubbish idea but he will be at work.

When we had finished I cleared up the mess that we had made in the house as well, because we had trailed sawdust and dog paw prints all over the carpets, and Oliver retreated to his bedroom to eat sausages and shout at cyber people in the online world.

After that I got on with my job of the day, which was to make Oliver some laundry bags for school. He has got some of these already, but the Duffus laundry system is rubbish and he needs some which will be easily spotted in a massive pile of crumpled laundry, like the new red sheets.

I have cut out eight new laundry bags, one for every day and a spare.  They are pink and cream with roses on. Oliver rolled his eyes and said that at least nobody else will have anything at all like them.

I shall sew them tomorrow, probably in between laying a new floor.

Maybe.

*a fridge.

It made me laugh again.