I am feeling very contented indeed with my world.
It has been a very gentle sort of day.
As you know, my parents have come to see us. This has been brilliant. It has been nice to see them and it has turned into a sort of idle holiday at home. We spent the morning aimlessly milling around a garden centre and telling ourselves that we could grow just the same plants perfectly well from seeds at home, then they came round and had dinner with us this evening. My parents, not the plants, obviously, although they had brought us a rather beautiful plant to go in the new conservatory.
I have forgotten what it is called and so can’t look up the best way to look after it, but it has gorgeously scented waxy white flowers. I like it very much. I hope it doesn’t die.
I had made so much of dinner earlier on in the week, the raspberry ice cream and the mushroom pate, that today was hardly any effort at all. I ambled around my kitchen contentedly, chopping up vegetables and stopping Mark from sampling everything, and contemplating the best sort of bread to make. I made some white chocolate curd, inspired by a dollop of it added to our exciting restaurant dinner last night, but I didn’t add enough cream and it set too hard. It was nice anyway although troublesome to scrape off the plates.
Of course we timed it all completely wrongly, and after a day of happy pottering about, we realised at the last minute that we had forgotten to allow enough time to get changed and had to dive in the shower in a flurry of last minute ablutory panic.
I was just frantically rubbing my hair dry when the phone rang.
It was Number One Daughter.
She has been offering exercise advice to my mother, who has hurt her shoulder. I do not know exactly what the damage is, but it is horribly painful and stopping her from sleeping comfortably at nights.
In between lifting weights and jumping on and off boxes and running up mountains carrying other soldiers in her backpack, Number One Daughter knows a lot about physiotherapy. I do not know anything at all about physiotherapy, or indeed about injuries or medical care, although this does not stop me making things up and offering convincing-sounding advice which might actually be total rubbish on occasion.
On this occasion Number One Daughter was offering the advice and so it was sensible and would probably work.
She rang up to say that she had been so concerned about my mother’s sore shoulder that she had forgotten to mention that she had been invited to the Prime Minister’s house in a couple of weeks, and would I please tell them on her behalf.
She has been asked to go and talk about being an Inspirational Woman at Number Ten Downing Street.
Of course, as you know, I am quite familiar with Number Ten Downing Street.
You might remember that when we went to see Hamilton in London last summer, we stopped there and peered through the railings with great interest, watching everybody coming and going and marvelling at the exciting London-ness of it all.
Number One Daughter is going to go there and actually go through the gates.
They have not added ‘bring your mother’ to the invitation, unfortunately, and when I asked if she would like to pass a few of my thoughts about running the country on to Boris she declined, quite firmly, but I am excited by proxy all the same. One’s children having thrilling adventures is every bit as good as having them for yourself. It is possibly better because you get all of the happy excitement without any of the worry about accidentally spilling red wine down your shirt, or whether or not you will be served spaghetti for dinner, or that you might drop something and say an inadvertent rude word.
I am very pleased indeed with my family at the moment. They are having the most magnificently interesting lives.
Quite apart from going to lunch with Boris, Number One Daughter has just won a cross-fit competition called the European Championships, a picture of which is attached. We are very proud of this.
Number Two Daughter is not entering any championships at the moment on account of having recently skiied into a tree at high speed and bashed herself about considerably. The doctor thought that she might have ruptured a kidney but she hadn’t. I was quite especially impressed by this because she was having a very miserable week at the time and had gone off doing fast skiing to remind herself of the joyful things in life. I think this is rather splendid, as I would probably not be brave enough to do this myself even if I could ski at all, which I can’t.
Lucy has been obliging the police by pretending to be a rioter in order that some other policemen can learn how to stop people from rioting. This is quite difficult because you have got to shout unkind rude things at nice hard working police officers who are just doing their job. Also it turns out that she is a rubbish shot with a petrol bomb, and thinks that on the whole if you are dissatisfied with your life it is less hassle to write a letter to the council.
Oliver has become very independent and organised. He has become very grown up and sensible all of a sudden. I do not need to say much about his activities, because you might have spotted that he has written a diary entry himself today. You can read about them for yourselves.
It has been a splendid day.
