Came in useful

I am pleased to tell you that I have not died at all.

I have not even nearly died.

There is an unpleasant shortness of breath, not unlike I recall from an occasion in my younger days when I was once prevailed upon to try wearing a corset for an evening. The individual making such an unsympathetic request did not continue to enjoy my esteem for very long after that moment. As far as I could see it was little better than the illicit activities of Mr. Fifty Shades Of Grey, imagine wearing one all the time. I am very glad I am alive in the twenty first century and not the Edwardian Era. It was shockingly uncomfortable then, and it is no better now.

Anyway, apart from laboured breathing and a really irritating cough, I am perfectly all right, so do not waste any sympathy. Not only am I all right, we are just beginning truly to appreciate the joy of such an unanticipated holiday.

It is magnificent. We do not need to rush anywhere. All liabilities are on hold, because nobody is going to be horrid to us if we do not turn up somewhere, or do not pay something. We are gloriously, wonderfully free. We can amble about the garden and plant things in the field at the farm, and our lives are utterly our own for almost the first time ever.

It is a joy almost beyond description. I might be coughing, but I feel as though a tension that I never knew I had has seeped out of my whole body, leaving me feeling warm and fluid and relaxed. We have never done this, had such unpressured space to ourselves, and it is beyond any happiness I think I have known for a long time. Not that I have been miserable, because as you know I haven’t in the least, but it is an unexpected pleasure that I had not even known that I wished for.

We have, of course, filled it with as much activity as we could cram into it. If you get the horrible cough, I can tell you that it is far, far easier outside in the fresh air. We spent the day in the conservatory and the garden, and as I walked back in through the door to the warmth of the living room I felt my chest constrict as if somebody had just tightened a belt around it.

We have been planting things. For some completely incomprehensible reason, Mark had some old missile cases which he has hoarded amongst his supply of junk in his trailer at the farm. I have no idea at all where he got these from, nor why on earth he might have thought it was a good idea to acquire them when the Army took the missiles out of them, probably to shoot down some Argentinian. This is why we have disagreements about the amount of clutter he thinks it is all right to collect.

Anyway, they are exactly the right size for a seed bed. They are about five or six feet long, and about a foot deep, and we are experimenting with a new watering idea.

Mark drilled some holes in the bottom of them, and we poked some long strips of towel through, which hang into plastic cases underneath them which we have filled with water. The towel comes up into the soil, and we hoped that they would draw the water upwards and into the seed beds.

We have planted all sorts of things. We have planted herbs and flowers and salad things. When we have collected Oliver we will be planting peas and beans and all the things that we will be able to plant out in our field, where Mark is building an end of the world survival garden.

We are going to plant the tomatoes in some old beer barrels that he has also collected in his trailer at the farm. He is going to cut the tops off them and bring them home to the conservatory.

I am pleased that we can do this although refer you back to the remarks made above about hoarding junk. He is feeling vindicated that they have finally come in useful in the end, and I am rolling my eyes at him.

We have milled about in perfect happiness all day.

We are on our way north now to get Oliver. We thought it would be best to travel at night, so that when we have to stop for fuel there will be nobody else there, and we can just shove the card in the petrol pump and not worry about it.

We have broken down once so far, but Mark fixed it and it was all right, we had a water leak and the engine might have seized up but it didn’t.

I forgot to take a picture until we were almost ready to go, so it is a bit dark, but you get the idea. Have a picture of some boxes of soil. You can’t see that one of them is a missile case because we have put a board around it to hide its military lack of loveliness.