Well, I am very sorry to announce that the climactic moment of the day was when I put the clean sheets on the bed this afternoon.
The day so far, that is, I suppose, of course it isn’t over yet.
It was nice to have clean sheets, though, and I even managed clean towels as well, because the weather stayed unexpectedly dry, despite glowering grey skies, and a determined breeze whipped the washing to a flapping frenzy, and so it all dried.
There, that was the highlight of the day so far.
It won’t be, though. The highlight of the day will probably be when I crawl back underneath them after work tonight.
I do not switch the light off and pass out immediately when Mark is at home. He has his shower after mine, and so courteously, I stay awake until he appears in order to say goodnight politely and also to make sure that he has remembered to put the towel in the washing basket and get out a clean one for tomorrow morning. He does not always remember these little details and secretly I am quite sure that he never remembers to polish the taps either. I do not go on about this, however. I just think quietly to myself that I will polish them myself when he goes offshore again. You cannot have everything and it does seem a bit much to expect both a resident husband and gleaming bathroom taps as well.
I have got a book that I am reading especially to fill in this interlude with something splendid. I do not read it when I am at home by myself, these are the nights when I just switch off the light and pass out. It is a jolly good book, so I save it, and just read it a very little bit at a time. First I re-read the last bit that I read the day before, and then I read on for a few more pages.
I am trying to make it last until the sequel comes out in September, but I am not very confident that I will manage this, because my bookmark is travelling further and further down the book at an alarming speed, and there is a very disappointingly small thickness of book still left to go. This is made considerably worse by being at an exciting bit at the moment, and it is very hard not to keep turning the pages, breathlessly.
I am practising iron self-control, which is jolly difficult. I have not even looked at the end.
I do have other books to read, of course, not least because of being a regular visitor to the library, but they are not quite as splendid, and so do not merit being saved for special occasions and I merely read them between customers on the taxi rank. I have also got a couple of books recently purchased on eBay, and I am saving those as well. They are for nights when I am feeling disheartened, so that there is something nice to look forward to. There is no happiness like a really good book with lots of pages still left to go.
Of course I have not been reading today, although I confess that I did stop and just glance through one of the eBay books when I was supposed to be dusting. The problem about having Mark at home is that I seem to lose a lot of time just doing pleasing but completely unproductive things, like having a cup of coffee in bed before we get up. I like doing this very much, but it does delay the actual doing things part of the day, and this morning it also caused me a small but niggling worry, in case there might not be sufficient sheet-drying time left in the ominously grey day, but there was, so that was all right.
Mark buzzed off to do some farm things, I am not sure what because they were related to a digger, and I have not been paying very much attention, but by the time I had been to Booths and hoovered and dusted I had used up the whole day. I did not get time to do anything in the garden. I put the sheets back on the bed and made our taxi picnics and that was that.
I am feeling pleased anyway, because I have cleared all of the tiresome chores out of the way and the rest of the week is my own to do with as I choose. The garden will still be there tomorrow. I am very much looking forward to getting on with it, and Mark has suggested that we go to Barrow later on in the week and purchase some lavender plants to fill the flower bed on the wall, which is dry and sandy and should be perfect for lavender.
I like this idea.
It will be something else to look forward to. The world is full of these nice things because Mark’s mother is coming to visit us tomorrow and we are going to go to the Indian restaurant to celebrate our joint birthdays, because it has just been her birthday as well. We will not need to go to work, and we will eat wonderful mango butter chicken and drink a bottle of wine, it will be magnificent.
The world is stuffed full of approaching happy things.
I am content.
