I am entirely unimpressed about the snow.
Here we were, expecting an I-may-be-gone-some-time sort of blizzard, and it has been an entirely damp squib.
We have had a few tiny and unenthusiastic flakes, the sort of Arctic equivalent of drizzle. It has been enough to oblige me to hang my washing in the house but not enough to be able to make footprints, never mind a snowball.
I am not impressed with the Weather Gods, it is an unusually poor show. They usually do better than that in Windermere, but today has been a climactic anti-climax.
We still keep getting warnings about the terrible dangers posed by the appalling meteorological disaster that is hitting us, and warning us not to go out in order to save the NHS and save lives, or something. Very sensible, I am all in favour of following the science.
I did not stay at home, obviously. The dogs and I tramped up the fells this morning, where it was snowing a bit more but not enough to make anything white, and it was so cold on the tops that it made my teeth hurt. The dogs did not seem to notice, despite their newly-bald status, and rampaged around rolling in frozen mud and weeing on the snowdrops.
When I came back I had a cooking day. I started before I even set off, actually. By the time I took the dogs out I had already made apple-pie filling, mayonnaise and coffee chocolates. When I came back I made fudge, apple pies and cheese and onion pies. This took me the whole day.
I do not know why it all takes so long. Looking at the list of achievements it seems pitifully tiny, but I can promise you, I spent the entire day bending over the worktops, wiping my hands on my apron and booting Rosie out from under my feet.
Rosie likes cooking. She has been known to try and squeeze into the dishwasher to lick the cheese grater. I do not use the dishwasher whilst I am cooking, which is perhaps why it takes so long, because I have to use the same things again and again, so I have got to keep washing them. The fire was not very hot because I had got the oven on in the kitchen, and so I ran out of hot water as well and had to keep boiling the kettle.
Nevertheless the results have been entirely satisfactory. The idea is that I will get all of my housework done and then have plenty of time left over to write my story, which is my plan for tomorrow if we have not grown some more dust by then.
It is so long since I have written any of this I have entirely forgotten what the plot was supposed to be. This has been a disconcerting turn of events, because I thought very carefully about it some time ago, worked out a perfect turn of events complete with plot twist, and I can’t now remember a single word.
I have had a Person from Porlock, in the shape of a trip to Cambridge, a trip to Scotland, two essays to write, a major house-de-fleaing, a collapsed website and some dusting, not to mention some home made fudge and some prawn toast.
I had dismissed the story as being something I would get on with later, and now that I have got to Later, I have entirely forgotten it. I read some of it last night in the hope that it would all come flooding back, but it didn’t, and when I got to the end I was most disappointed, because it was quite exciting, and I had been dying to know what was happening next.
I thought very hard about it on the fells this morning, with no success.
The plot was there. I recall the exultation with which I galloped down the fell one morning, having realised it in its entirety and thought how perfectly it would all fit together: and it has fled like a dog that has had an accident on the carpet.
I am going to have to try and think again tomorrow.
