The problem with a busy sort of life is that sometimes by the time I get to actual work I am absolutely exhausted and ready to go to sleep.
Today is one of those days.
I got to the taxi rank and longed just to close my eyes and let my headache drift into oblivion. I felt far too idle to start composing inspiring prose, but civic duty called, and so here I am.
I have been shopping.
Obviously I have not just been shopping. I have done washing and dog-emptying and tidying up and wiping things as well, but you do not need to hear about those, any more than you need to hear about where Jane Eyre went to the lavatory. Some things are just too much detail.
I think I told you that Oliver is going on holiday next week. He is meeting up with friends from his prep school, and they are going to do boy things. They are going karting and canoeing and rampaging about together.
He needed some new clothes.
I hate shopping even when I have got plenty of cash, the weather is clement, I am wearing comfortable shoes, and everybody else in the country has stayed at home.
Apart from the shoes, none of those things happened today.
Worse, the stupid tiresome face mask rule applies, although this did mean that nobody else was in any of of the shops. All of the madding crowds were on the pavements. You do not have to wear a mask outdoors, and the streets were packed with visitors, jammed tightly elbow-to-elbow, turning their faces up to the benevolent sunshine.
I do not have a face mask, and have not got the smallest intention of purchasing one. If I really wanted one there are dozens and dozens of unwanted ones littering the streets of Bowness.
I dug out a couple of lengths of Indian silk, left over from our days of being travellers in antique lands.
Oliver and I wrapped one each around our heads. I looked a bit like a Berber tribeswoman. Oliver might have looked like one as well, only his flat cap spoilt this a bit.
Mark took us to Bowness and went to sit on the taxi rank whilst Oliver and I went to purchase new trousers. There is no possibility whatsoever of finding a parking space in Bowness at the moment, unless you arrive at about three in the morning and stake your claim before the hordes appear.
We enveloped ourselves in our burkas and went into the shop. We took them off after a while, because there was nobody else there to care if we wore them or not.
You can’t try clothes on at the moment in case you leave a disease in them when you take them off.
We measured them optimistically against Oliver and hoped that they would be all right, and when we eventually got things home some were, and some weren’t.
We did not care very much. Oliver does not enjoy shopping either, and we just wanted to get it over and done with very quickly.
Mark was supposed to collect us when we wanted to go home, but as it happened by the time we had finished, he had picked up some customers and gone to Ambleside, so we walked.
There were a very lot of people walking. You could tell that the sun has been shining, because they all had bright pink skin, and were wearing just their underwear.
Oliver carried all of the shopping bags, because he has become very grown up and heroic. I offered to help once or twice, but was guiltily relieved when he declined. It was a hot day and a big hill, and I am not as young as I once was.
Mark caught up with us just before we got home, but we were still glad of the lift even for the last few yards, and then we dashed inside to get ready for work.
I made dinners and tidied up and here I am.
I have done my civic duty for the day now. I am going to read my book and not do anything else useful until bedtime.
Goodnight.
