I have had my shower and am about to go to bed.
We have not been to work. Enough is enough, we can go again on Boxing Day.
One of the taxi drivers who used to be a chef called around the back of the house today and gave me a Christmas present of some chicken liver pate he had made.
I have had to be self-controlled to save it for tomorrow night’s party, because it smells so divine I could have eaten it there and then, perhaps we could just have some for breakfast in the morning.
I bounced back into the house feeling utterly joyful at having such good and clever friends. Life is very good.
It really is very good tonight. Mark has brought me flowers, enough for every room, and I have dried lots of oranges and lemons in my drying machine, which I have scattered about in bowls all over the house. I keep getting surprise wafts of glorious scents of oranges and lilies, which is making me feel very pleased with the world.
The day has been a peculiar mixture of very gently relaxed and frantically busy. It started with a leisurely coffee in bed, during which we contemplated the necessity for a new welding machine. In the end we bought one on eBay, which pleased Mark very much, it can be his Christmas present. I was pleased as well, because when it comes he will be able to mend things and make things and also he will disappear into his shed for hours on end leaving me to get on with my own projects in peace and quiet.
I might start writing another story.
In the end, of course, we had to get up, and I took the dogs out over the fell. I have not done that very often for the last week or two, and my legs were stiff and slow at first, but the air was cold and clear and sharp, and the dogs charged about in great excitement, barking at the places where squirrels might have been a few months ago.
Mark had to go out when I got back, he was fixing the broadband at Number One Son-In-Law’s house in Barrow. This had to be done in a hurry, because the last tenants had complained about it, and some new people will be staying in it over Christmas, so of course they will want the mighty Internet. When he got back he said that the problem was that somebody had unplugged it, so that was all right, it is a good job that he is technically minded.
He fixed the lights in the conservatory as well, when we had the rats in there they had chewed through the wires. I do not know if they got an electric shock when they did it, but if they did they were very slow learners, because they had chewed through two different wires.
Lucy and Jack buzzed off to the cinema to watch Avatar, which is the increasingly rubbish series of films about the blue aliens who are fighting to save their planet from the ravening hordes of Americans who are turning up to murder their whales and bulldoze their ancient trees. I have watched one and a half of these films and find myself increasingly siding with the Americans, the blue people with the dreadlocks are improbably, nauseatingly virtuous and there are too many explosions for the film to be anything other than dull since the nearest 3D screen is in Barrow.
Oliver went to work. He has discovered that the number plate on the front of his car does not match the one on the back, which we thought might make car parking cheaper. He has occupied much of the day in a quest to find out which one is the right one, since he is trying to insure it.
I stayed at home and made the mince pies, better late than never.
I liked doing that as well, and the kitchen smelled wonderfully of cinnamon and orange and brandy for the rest of the day.
It took ages. In the end Mark came to help me, but we still did not finish until long after eleven, which is why I am – once again – writing to you at two in the morning.
I think probably it would be sensible to stop and go to bed.
It all starts happening tomorrow.
