…nor any drop to drink.
This is because it has leaked through the ceiling and on to the floor, because it is dripping off the washing and off my hair and trousers, and also bashing down outside in great monsoony torrents.
We came home from the theatre to find a crack in the kitchen ceiling with large drops of grubby water seeping through it, and a puddle on the floor.
We discovered not one, but two floods, not even connected to one another, both from entirely independent sources, presumably because we have in some way given offence to the Water Gods. If they are reading this I apologise with the utmost sincerity for whatever it was, and promise not to do it again.
The shower tube from the jacuzzi and the loo cistern were both leaking.
Our house was hot and damp.
We mopped, and then mopped again, and Mark dismantled the loo and fixed it. We are not using the jacuzzi so that was not a complicated fix, but much of the pipework has got to be dismantled next week anyway. Mark is going to do this whilst I am in Cambridge because there will be less shouting that way.
After that we did some of the stack of washing from our Manchester holiday and took the dogs out to the park, at which point the heavens opened, and left us so completely soaked that we had to get changed. The dogs could not get changed so our already wet house now accommodates four very wet dogs.
This is a detail.We had a lovely, lovely time in Manchester. We Will Rock You is absolute rubbish, with the most pathetically pathetic excuse for a plot, threaded through with unamusing humour and some mildly annoying political commentary. The music, however, was absolutely brilliant, and once I decided to ignore the plot and just pretend that I was watching a Queen tribute band, it was all fine. Also we had just eaten the most enormous and delightful Greek dinner, in the best and most entertaining company, and all in all our evening was truly magnificent.
Not only that, but the lovely, lovely Midland was at its finest and loveliest. We arrived to find Prosecco and chocolates and a huge bowl of fruit in our bedroom, with a little card saying how pleased the Midland Hotel was to have us back again.
This was about as hugely satisfying as a welcome gesture can be, what an ego-flattering pleasure that was. Really, I am going to have my ashes scattered there when I die, probably under one of the beds so that nobody notices for ages.
I like the Midland. It is my favourite place in the whole world.
I am also relieved to tell you that tiresome Prince Harry did not turn up, indeed, almost nobody from the Ring Of Steel Smiling Festival turned up. There were several delegates appeared but they all just strolled through the lobby and went to bed.
We did not go to bed until they chucked us out of the bar, and we did not even go then but hung about in our bedroom with Elspeth and John, smugly drinking Prosecco and eating chocolates and fruit. I thought I would have the most awful hangover this morning, because the red wine started within ten minutes of arrival, with an excellent Malbec, and carried on intermittently for the next twelve hours.
I am pleased to announce that I did not, and was in a fit state to consume the most colossal breakfast, at which we ate absolutely everything, from huge slices of roast salmon, accompanied by pineapple and the most gloriously thick yoghurt, consumed with slabs of cheese, chocolate bread rolls with butter and jam, and slices of melon. We followed that with the traditional egg-bacon-sausage-hash-browns breakfast, and then washed it down with thick black coffee.
I was wearing dungarees and so did not need to loosen any belts at all, I can recommend this. Indeed, apart from having to slide my chair backwards a bit you would hardly have noticed that I had gone up a couple of dress sizes before ten in the morning.
We thought we would compensate for this with some brisk exercise, and went for a wallow in the swimming pool. It was not exactly brisk, it was more of a soak-and-groan, but there is a wonderful salt steam room, into which we collapsed until we were bright pink, followed by a swim, a cold shower, and a brisk scrub.
All of this makes the most splendid start to the day as long as you have no intention of trying to achieve anything else, and indeed we haven’t done, apart from some desultory flood-mopping, and I had my first University tutorial meeting.
I like my tutor very much. He is sensible and astute. I am not. When he asked what I had done to prepare for the new term my mind went temporarily and horribly blank, and I said that I had bought a sweatshirt that said Cambridge University on the front, which might not have been the most impressive answer.
I am going to go away and try and read some poetry.
