Boringly smug

I am feeling very happy indeed.

I have had the most wonderful day.

Indeed, I am still having a wonderful day.

I am in a fresh, crisp bed in the Midland, wearing a large white towelling robe. I have just eaten some chocolate which was A Present From The Midland, and then had a shower after which I did not bother turning the water on to cold, neither did I wipe the mirror nor polish the taps.

I am indulging in the most magnificently idle hedonism. At this moment it is very nice indeed to be me. I can hardly believe that only this morning I was stumping through the mud on the fells, avoiding the Galloways and bellowing at the stupid dogs. That was another person whose life is full of the sort of stuff that makes their hands and boots grubby.

I am not that person tonight.

We had done almost everything last night before we left but it still took us ages to get organised this morning, and even then we did not completely manage it and had to leave a load of washing still churning around the washing machine, it will be smelly by the time we get back.

Some people are going to come and visit the dogs and take them for walks. They have clearly done this already, because they sent us a video of the poopies, which we did not bother watching, because we know what the poopies are like. They are noisy and leak a lot.

Of course we finished up rushing. We got to the Midland about an hour later than we had expected, and had to dash about chucking things into cupboards and hanging up things so that they would not be horribly creased. We abandoned Oliver to await his sisters’ arrival and belted off, ignoring any hostly responsibilities.

We had an evening planned by ourselves.

Instead of staying in the Midland and welcoming family and friends, we sloped off to have dinner on our own.

We went to a very nice pub. We were not just having dinner. There was a brass band coming to play Christmas music, and I wanted to go and join in.

I like brass bands very much.

Not only do I like brass bands, but I wanted to hear this brass band, because one of the players used to teach me English at school.

I do not know what the instrument is that he plays. It might be a horn or a cornet but it makes a wonderful brassy noise which is almost but not quite as thrilling as a tuba.

I have not seen him since I was fifteen and spottier than I am now, but he has remained one of my heroes ever since that time. He did not teach me everything I know, because obviously English lessons did not include useful information like how to make cakes or replace a headlamp, but he taught me a very lot of very interesting things, and it is entirely thanks to him that I never need to think twice before I spell diarrhoea correctly.

Also I learned to like the poetry of Andrei Vosnesensky and Shelley and not like Keats as much. There were lots of things, and some of them I have forgotten, but his classes made me very happy then, and still make me happy to remember them now, so it was splendid to see him.

I only even noticed the advertisement on Facebook for the concert because there was an apostrophe in the wrong place. I noticed that and it made me go back and read the advertisement, and think that it might be a happy thing to do, so really it was thanks to him that I even knew about it.

He was looking very well, and had hardly changed at all. I had imagined that he was about eighty when he was teaching us at school, but he was only thirty five, things look very different when you are a teenager.

The whole evening was a delightful, leisurely event with everybody milling about chatting and buying drinks, and the conductor telling dreadful jokes, and the words printed in the wrong order in the programme, and we enjoyed it hugely, we will go again next year. To my deep regret we had to leave early, because we had promised that we would meet the children in the Midland bar, but next year we thought we would all go, although the children seemed not to be very interested in brass bands, sometimes they are just Philistines.

After that we dashed back to the Midland where we had the splendid happiness of finding lots of our favourite people in the whole world. We have got other favourite people who were not there, so please don’t feel left out, but it was a small gathering of people all of whom we like very much. The hotel smelled of Christmas and we had another bottle of wine and the world was a very cheery place.

We are here for three days. I don’t have a single tiresome job to do in all of that time. I am feeling very pleased to be me this evening.

Mark is just getting out of the shower.

Probably it is my bedtime. We are going to have an early breakfast in the morning.

Until tomorrow.

Life is jolly good.