Smug

I am having a good day.

I have not done anything spectacularly exciting, I am just feeling contented with my world.

We went to work last night and earned some money. I can hardly tell you what a colossal relief it was. It was not quite as much as in the glory days of crowded pubs and rowdy nightclubs and people with too many drugs and young men being sick on the pavement, but it was pretty good all the same.

Actually there were quite a few young men being sick on the pavement, rather more than usual. It must be that the last couple of years have reduced their tolerance for a skinful of Jaeger Bombs and a snort of cocaine.

I did not care. We stayed at work until almost two in the morning, and for the first time in ages we went home and had made so much money that we actually had to count it.

You do not need to bother with this activity when your cash box yields two tenners and a fiver.

We went to bed knowing joyously that this week we would not need to make choices. Mark has done three days of rural broadband as well, and we thought that we would be able to pay the electricity bill, the council tax, the mortgage and even some of the school fees. Then we slept the sleep of blissful content.

Regrettably when Mark went to the farm today the digger split one of its hoses, so we might have to make a bit of a choice, unless we earn some more money tonight, because hydraulic hoses are not cheap, but still it did not seem to matter. We thought happily that it is now quite likely that we will earn more money next week, and the week after. Maybe then the Government will let everybody get on with their lives properly, and we can be Merrie England again.

With this contentedness seeping through my veins, I ambled around the house today in a state of bucolic Cumbrian happiness. You might remember that I cleaned everywhere yesterday, and so I did not even have that to do. I had already made biscuits, and there is a lemon cake still untouched on the dresser. In the fridge we have got tubs of coffee-and-whisky-with-cream chocolates, and raspberry-and-cream dark chocolates. I made these a few days ago, and we are taking a few of them to work every night, for encouragement in the dark hours after midnight.

I thought I might write some more of my story today, but we got up so late that I didn’t get round to it. Mark went to the farm and I pottered about the house joyfully. Mark had hoovered my taxi out for me, and I washed the dashboard down and squirted it all with Disneyland perfume, which is still one of my favourites. Then I made our picnic and hung up the washing, and filled the house with the scent of my nicest candle. This is a glorious heavy scent of maple syrup and Jim Beam whisky, and set my life in a tidy order.

It made me feel rather smug to consider  how much my twenty-year-old self would have envied me. There are still some things that she would have liked to do that I haven’t quite got around to yet, but there is still time for those. In the meantime I have got a jolly nice husband, and some interesting children who are obviously the most perfect and beautiful ones in the whole world.

Also, the very worst of earning a living involves sitting at the side of a lake gazing across it at the distant fells.

I am living in a splendid blue-and-orange-and-pink-and-gold painted house, with a wild and thrilling jungle just beside the kitchen where the very first tiny tomatoes are just starting to emerge. There are fresh white sheets on the bed ready for tonight, and a Mr. Tumpy camper van parked on the roadside ready for next week. There are bluebells and mint and blackcurrant bushes crowding about the back door, and roses and lilac and honeysuckle trailing all over the front.

On top of all of those wonderful things, we are not going to go broke today.

Life is very good indeed.

Have a picture of our walk.