Symon the Tiresome

I am having the most extraordinarily tiresome day.

I am still wrestling with the misadventures of Symon the Black, and they will not go right.

They have got to go right, because they are for my assessment piece, the second of the three that will give me my grade which as you know has got to be a First Class With Honours or I will be obliged to shoot myself, and they are not going right at all.

The sun shone, so I walked over the fell with the dogs and thought and thought. I thought so hard that I could practically feel my brain starting to boil dangerously, like milk when you are not paying attention and then have got to do a lot of clearing up.

I went home and hung the washing in the yard because of the sun, and then turned my attention back to my computer.

It still would not go right.

After a while I rang Elspeth and read it to her over the telephone.

Elspeth said that it was so boring she could probably skip her evening gin before bedtime.

I read it back to myself and was inclined to agree.

Worse even than that, at that very moment an email came in from my tutor, approving the title I had sent to her, and warmly assuring me that she was really looking forward to reading it, and adding that she does not usually feel that way about student warblings.

I could have chucked myself out of the office window there and then. I didn’t because the conservatory roof is underneath my office, and all that would have happened would have been a clumsy descent into next door’s garden, followed by some embarrassing explanations.

Instead I went downstairs and did some comfort-cooking. I made some ice cream. Then I made a bread-and-butter-pudding with the left over egg whites and the last of the bread. Then I made some raspberry chocolate. After that I made some fudge.

I thought guiltily that Mark had said not to make any more sweet things for a while, because he thinks that he is getting fat, so I will have to tell him that sugar is a known cure for colds. We have still got a cold. I am blaming the rubbishness of Symon the Black on the cold, but it isn’t because of that at all. It is because I am making a pig’s ear of it and I don’t know how to stop.

I am not going to go to work tonight. I tried to go to work on Sunday night but the hastily-repaired fuel pressure sensor had fallen to bits again and the taxi would not start. I tried not to be pleased about this but I was. It would have been dreadful if it had collapsed on Saturday night when we could really earn money, but of course it is not important on a Sunday, and it meant that we could have an early night.

The new one turned up on the Autoparts van this afternoon, and Mark says that he will get round to fitting it as soon as he can. I hope he does not hurry up. It is very nice to be idle with a clear conscience. When he comes home this evening we will be able to eat dinner and maybe even watch a film, because of course it is completely impossible to go to work when your taxi will not start.

Obviously my conscience is not completely clear. I ought to be planning stirring and glorious prose with which to astound my tutors, but I am not going to. I am going to loaf about eating fudge and drinking wine, and hoping that an Inspirational Fairy pops round whilst I am watching some junk on Netflix.

You never know.