I am catching up with myself.
I have taken the poor housebound dogs off on a trek over the fells, the point of which was as much for my exercise as theirs. Also my tutor had a very great deal to say about my dissertation story, and I wanted to rewrite some bits.
Outdoor contemplation was called for.
It is terribly cold for April, we have got a biting easterly wind, but it is sunny and clear, and the lakes of mud that have been slurping menacingly in every low-lying bit of ground are finally beginning to dry up. This was a relief, my walks have for ages involved lengthy detours around paths which had become shining green swamps, with oily mud threatening to suck down and swallow my boots at every step.
Today things have improved very much, and there were skylarks and blackbirds, finches and robins, and a field full of Galloway cattle which glanced up curiously as we passed, but which were too idle to investigate us, much to Rosie’s relief. She does not like cows.
The dogs charged about and rolled in badger poo and Rosie got wet in the tarn, which made her sneeze. I walked and walked, and thought hard, and by the time I was stumping back down I had resolved the matter to my satisfaction, and thought I would whisk through all of my jobs and then dash upstairs and write it.
Obviously it did not work like that.
The woodshed was almost completely empty. That is to say, it was empty of cut wood, the sort that can be carried indoors and fitted neatly into the stove. There were quite a few planks, and noggins, and lumps of board, and old doorframes, so much, indeed, that it was blocking the entrance into the shed.
I hauled it all out and cut it up.
The woodshed was quite restored by the time I had finished, which was splendid, I will not be getting cold just yet.
After that I cleared up all of the sawdust which had drifted all over the yard, like a mildly repellently yellow snowfall, and rushed up to Booths.
I can eat my own things now that Mark is not here, because I do not care about sausages and pies and other stout-making delicacies. Also I thought that I would make the most of my solitude to try and rid myself of some of the excess portliness that I have acquired during my sojourn in academia, so I purchased ethical fruit and ethical cheese and ethical yoghurt, and marched determinedly past the chocolate button aisle without even looking. I was proud of this, except I forgot that the dog food is at the far end of the chocolate button aisle and so I had to rush out to Sainsbury’s afterwards.
I am in my taxi now and am trying to convince myself that ethical fruit tastes just as nice as chocolate buttons, which obviously it just doesn’t, it is not true that life is made by the story you tell yourself about it.
I got home and made curried cauliflower in the air fryer. This is not something I would consider eating in the normal way but since I am on my own it will not matter even if it gives me the most shocking wind. Also it is one of the very few things that I really can eat all to myself because the dogs just will not bother begging for it. After that I cooked some spiced sweet potatoes and cut up some carrots to be eaten raw.
By the time I had finished all of that, and washed it all up, it was half past four, and I hurtled upstairs to write my story before I forgot all about it, and was so busy scowling at the screen and thinking that I was late for work.
It doesn’t matter. I have cut the firewood now and I have decided that I am going to leave the dusting until Clean Sheets Day on Monday, there is no point in doing it twice. The spider over the top of the bath can consider that it has got a weekend’s Notice To Quit before forcible eviction processes begin.
I hope I get thin soon. Eating vegetables is all very well but really they are not much of an improvement on eating one’s handkerchief. Let us hope it happens quickly, because I don’t suppose I will manage it for very long.
I am going to go and finish my raw carrots.
