It is dark.
In the Library gardens the air is heavy with mist and drizzle, drifting in the still silence.
It is very peculiar to be in Windermere when nobody is here.
I took the dogs for a long stroll up the fell this morning instead of going to church, and we had two minutes’ silence during which I ignored them bouncing about after squirrels and did not bellow at them at all.
Roger Poopy is determined to learn how to climb trees now that he has discovered squirrels. He spent his two minutes’ silence trying very hard to get the hang of it but without much success, especially as at 11:03 he was required sharply to desist.
I would not have gone to church anyway, but it is Remembrance Sunday, and it seems important to remember, even though the thousands of young men who died shrieking in the dreadful mud of Ypres and Flanders will never know that we do.
People keep talking on things like Facebook about bat flu being like the spirit of the Blitz but I bet it isn’t. Oliver is stuck in isolation in his house at school and can’t see any of his friends in case one of them makes an old person sick. I don’t suppose he feels much like the Blitz.
My own being in isolation is much nicer than the Blitz. I made some cakes this morning and used the crystallised fruit instead of sugar. This works brilliantly, just so you know, if ever you feel like eating pineapple and kiwi fruit flavoured buns then feel free to give it a go. I have still got some left so I will have to make some more before it gets shoved to the back of the fridge in perpetuity, only to be dragged out in a few months time when I can’t remember what it is or decide if it will be safe to taste or not.
When I came down from the fells I abandoned the dogs on their cushion in front of the fire and went to Booths.
A man in the Library Gardens last night told me that Booths were selling joints of beef off at half price. I do not really eat beef very much, because of the indigestion, but Mark and Oliver both like it very much, and it occurred to me that perhaps we could have beef for Christmas dinner if the Indian restaurant has got bat flu rules.
My parents, as I think I told you, had generously donated some cash do our personal disaster relief fund, so I went to investigate. Booths does ethical farming, and if you want to know, which I didn’t, they will tell you everything about the beef, starting with what stories its mother used to read to it as a calf and what it wanted to be when it grew up.
This does not exactly encourage me to eat it. It is so misfortunate that it tastes so nice.
Booths, like everywhere else, was deserted, which was presumably why they were selling beef off at a discount.
It turned out that they were selling lots of things at a discount, and for fifty quid I finished up with a very nice bottle of half price single malt, three packets of smoked trout, which I might have mentioned is my current favourite food ever, a bag of walnuts for the dogs, and a joint of beef practically as big as my head.
We are going to have such a brilliant Christmas.
I did not wait until Christmas to put the walnuts in their dish on the fireplace, and Roger Poopy was made very happy indeed. He crunched them up ecstatically, and prised out the walnuts, although in the process he scattered shards of walnut shells all over their cushion in front of the fire. This made him whimper and fidget when he accidentally lay on them afterwards, and I had to get the dustpan and clear them all up.
I am pleased to tell you, then, that we might well be having beef for our Christmas dinner, unless we accidentally eat it first and have to pop over to Yew Tree Farm for a goose. Mark’s father used to bring our Christmas goose in the days when he had a December job plucking them, but he is dead now and on top of the grandfather clock, so we will have to buy our own.
Have a picture of a walk.
