Spring has jolly well sprung.
Mark went off to install rural broadband, leaving me with a stack of laundry and washing up.
How pleased I was.
Not only have we wasted half a week stammering and trying not to look culpable for anything in courtrooms, now that we are home again, Lucy has gone away and today her bedroom needed to be emptied.
Everybody’s bed needed clean sheets. Everybody’s bathroom needed to be cleaned and towels needed to be washed. Everybody’s bin needed to be emptied, and everybody’s carpet needed to be hoovered.
I did not bother with this last bit because I am just an idle hedonist at heart, and could not be bothered to lug the hoover all the way up two flights of stairs.
Maybe tomorrow.
Instead of hoovering, or scrubbing his loo, Oliver and I stuck some pictures of leaves on his wall, in order to make his bedroom look like a jungle. This would probably work if we bought another twenty or thirty stick-on pictures of leaves. Two is not really enough, and instead the effect is more like a Windermere back yard in February, minus the piles of firewood.
I considered putting some actual genuine plants in there but we are getting to the end of the hyacinths and everything else is still shivering under the ground. I looked up the white grubs on the mighty Internet, and my mother was exactly right, they were vine weevils. Fortunately they were in a pot, and so far nothing else seems to have been eaten, but we will have an anxious wait for a while, in case they have laid their beastly eggs anywhere else.
It was such a wonderfully spring-like day that for the very first time this year I hung the sheets out in the back yard. This turned out to be not entirely rewarding. For a brick-lined yard it was surprisingly muddy, and somehow our duvet cover seems to have amassed a number of grubby black smears. Fortunately they were on the same side as the patched bit, which goes on the underneath anyway, so they didn’t matter too much.
There was not room for all of the sheets. We are having something of a washing line crisis, because Mark took it down to build a log shed and has not put it back properly. I have been disgruntled about this and it has been the subject of some grumpy chuntering. One hook is too close to the conservatory door which will not open properly when things are on the washing line, and one has not been put back at all. Worse still, both of my clothes props seem to have disappeared.
I am very concerned that they might have accidentally been turned into central heating during the cold snap.
Once the washing was flapping nicely it turned out that Oliver had finished his lessons for the day, so I suggested that he come with me to cut some firewood. He wasn’t exactly enthusiastic, indeed, he had some maths prep that he would have very much have liked to be doing, but eventually he was persuaded and we went up together.
This was splendid. The afternoon sun was slowly dipping behind the fells, and the moon was becoming bright silver in the clear sky.
There was a little cluster of sheep around the newly-planted honeysuckle. Mark had put sheep netting around it, but they were nudging it hopefully, wondering if they might be able to eat it.
We chased them off, much to the distress of the dog, who knows that chasing sheep is the most unspeakably wicked act in the whole world. They kept coming back anyway, and every time we looked up there was a hopeful sheep, edging closer and keeping a watchful eye on us.
We took it in turns to fill the car and split the logs, since we only have one axe now, and trundled back to unload them in the darkening alley.
We will be warm for another day.
I have not yet told you anything about the still-rolling court case. This is rumbling on in the background to all of our lives, and every now and again little whispers of news of its progress reach us. It is not going to be over for a few days yet, so I hope the jury have got comfortable chairs. It is very difficult to listen patiently to endless rumination about who might have painted what when you are trying not to fidget.
I think probably I am very glad that I did not pay sufficient attention at school to consider becoming a barrister. On the whole it was very much nicer to be out in the warm spring sunshine, breathing in the smells of earth, and freshly-split pine logs, and sheep.
Not long now and it will all be behind us. We are moving on.
Have a picture of the spring
