Somebody very kind read my plaintive remarks about not having any photographs of the wedding, and they have sent me one.
I have attached it for your entertainment. Rather regrettably it sums up the whole evening very nicely and also saves me a further thousand words of wittering. It is very easy to see from the photograph what sort of evening it was in the end.
It is both strange and wonderful that it is all over, like coming to the end of one of those fairy tales where the pixies turn up and make a complete nuisance of themselves, and then disappear in the morning leaving nothing behind them but a fluttering of dead leaves.
We have got lots of dead leaves where Mark took the archway down. We contemplated saving it but even at our most optimistic could think of no sensible function for an eight foot tall, hastily-constructed structure comprising lots of sticks and cherries and wilted flowers.
It has been added to the pile of firewood, with a few sighs.
Apart from that we are trying to shoehorn ourselves back into normal life. Mark spent today with his head under the bonnet of my taxi, taking the engine out again. I took the poor neglected dogs off over the fells for their first decent walk in days and days.
They did not seem to have suffered greatly. Roger Poopy had been grumbling about a sore paw which seems to have recovered during his enforced idleness, and Rosie is sufficiently rotund not to object in the least to an opportunity to snore in front of the fire for a few days.
The season has turned. The bit of the year with the mists and mellow fruitfulness has disappeared, and we have reached the bit where Dick the Shepherd blows his nail, and well he might. I tramped across the fells, marvelling at the hardness of the ground and the frosty whiteness covering the fallen leaves. The tarn had a layer of ice over it, not nearly enough to walk on yet, but it won’t be long at this rate.
I have been pleased to note, however, that we are – since yesterday – now able to keep the conservatory considerably warmer, since tiresome Guffy has finally condescended to use the cat flap, pushing her way through it even if it is closed.
This has made life a lot easier. It is not nice to have a large hole in the wall where the cat flap is propped open, especially on windy days. Mark has kept the stove beautifully filled with firewood and the house is wonderfully warm, despite the icy chill outside.
We will not be cold this winter.
The kittens have suddenly bounced into life as well, and every footfall in the conservatory has to be judged carefully, because of the risk of small, squeaky, squashy things being unexpectedly underneath it.
I do not think they have inherited their mother’s Problem. It is a great relief.
I spent the afternoon baking. I had intended to bake cheese and onion pies for entertaining wedding guests, but didn’t get round to it and they had to make do with biscuits. As it happened this turned out rather well, because I had lots of grease and salty brine left over from cooking wedding sausages, and it made the most perfect pastry mix, so I will be able to feed Mark and Oliver until they both buzz off.
They are both buzzing off very soon now. Mark goes off on the eighteenth to mend an oil rig somewhere in the Irish Sea, and Oliver goes off into the Army on the twenty second.
I will be by myself again.
That is such an odd concept that I have decided not to think about it. I like being on my own, it is rather nice not to have to worry about anybody else’s laundry and dietary preferences, but it is going to be very quiet.
I hope they eat the cheese and onion pies before they buzz off.
Cheese and onion pies with added sausage fat will not be an asset to my bottom.
