I cannot express sufficient happiness to describe the feeling of not having to get out of bed and go to work after just three or four hours sleep any more.
It is a complete joy.
On every night since Wednesday now we have slept for just as long as we wanted to, and it is making me feel contented with the world in a way I had completely forgotten.
I no longer wake up with eyes pre-loaded with sand, a wearisome ache in my neck, and a predisposition to growl at everybody. It is a marvellous idea, I can’t understand why I haven’t thought of it before.
We are also managing to find time to go swimming in the evenings as well, which is ace, although it has obliged me to focus my attention on my natural inclination towards idle rotundity, which I have been determinedly ignoring during the holidays.
When the children are at home it is almost impossible to timetable going swimming, on account of having to fit in with their activities, which include things like needing lifts to Chinese restaurants and having to be hunted down in the park at feeding times: all on top of our own prior commitment to the income generation project. After the first week or two, swimming just gets shoved into the ‘too hard’ pile.
Now they have gone we have resolved to restore ourselves to a state of improved health and well-being, also we can shower there which saves on electricity at home and means I don’t need to clean the bath or launder our towels. The PamperMe Natural Loveliness WellBeing WholePerson Spa provides delightfully enormous fluffy white towels for the use of its patrons, is warm, silent and discreet, and since I have got no children to worry about I can now puff up and down the swimming pool and loaf about in the sauna with a completely clear conscience.
There is no doubt that life is beginning to improve immeasurably. We got up this morning and decided that we would not go to work until the washing machine had finished, partly because we needed to get the washing done and dried because I have forgotten to put it on for the last few days and as a result we have run out of clean clothes, especially me.
We did this, which was nice, because it gave me time to put the dried lavender to steep in oil, and Mark time to give the dogs half a haircut each. He does it like this because he says they get bored and grumpy if he cuts all their hair off at once because it takes too long, so he has done the front end of both of them, and they look ridiculous.
We went to work once we had hung the washing out, and in consequence spent the rest of the afternoon on the taxi rank glancing anxiously at the gathering clouds and wondering if a hasty dash home would be required. We have got no boiler for drying things at the moment, because it is in bits at the farm not being fixed whilst we are at work, have used all our clothes, and an unexpected rainstorm would have meant tomorrow wrapped in a blanket.
Fortunately it didn’t rain, and I popped home at teatime and took it all inside, and so the awkwardness has been averted. Mark had been having a brief spasm of guilt about my elderly and largely second hand collection of clothes when we confronted the washing difficulty this morning, but then remembered that if I had really wanted clothes I would be buying clothes when I look at Amazon in dull taxi rank moments, instead of just borrowing his credit card to acquire more books to stack on my already overloaded shelves.
I am reading a book I bought on Amazon at the moment. It is an absolute page turner detailing how the policies and practices at Disneyland have changed over the years in response to various lawsuits. I have been reading it during every spare minute in the taxi rank, and it has kept me riveted. My favourite plaintiff was the disabled man who was stuck on the Small World ride for half an hour when the ride had to be stopped until the staff could get him off, and who sued the park because he said that the irritating music had caused him brain damage. We have been on the Small World ride quite a lot, because it is one of my favourites. I read the bit to Mark, who laughed and said that he knew exactly where the chap was coming from.
All of this has meant an absolutely splendid day. We have been refreshed from plenty of sleep, have had a jolly marvellous swim and then sauna and then thrilling plunge into the ice shower: and now I am in my taxi with a very good book to read when I have finished writing to you. Better still, it is Sunday, and so we can finish early because nobody wants to go anywhere very late on Sunday nights in Windermere, as everywhere is shut, which surprises some tourists, remember that if you come here on holiday.
What is more, when we get up tomorrow we have got clean clothes.
