I am finding it very difficult to write this tonight because of life being remarkably dull and uneventful at the moment.
It is not dull in a depressing and miserable yearning-for-adventure sort of way, although I must own that there are hints of that, an adventure would be a very splendid thing to have at the moment.
It is dull in that I cannot possibly describe making parsnip soup and laundry soap in such a way as to have an audience chuckling and gasping in astonishment. I would defy even masters of the writers’ craft, such as the magnificent JK Rowling, to make such activities sound captivating to any audience that wasn’t the Womens’ Institute.
I have finished the detective book written by JK Rowling incognito, by the way, which was a source of much regret. It was an excellent book, and I am pleased to say that I think she will probably write another, because the heroine has not yet married the detective, and I think she ought to.
These are the activities with which I have occupied my waking hours. They were very contentedly productive and absorbing in a quietly domestic way, but hardly the stuff of blockbusters, although there was a briefly exciting moment when I discovered I had a cut on my finger when it objected to being filled with caustic soda.
I would very much like an adventure.
We have been contemplating the possibility of travelling to Madrid to watch Number One Daughter lifting weights and jumping on and off benches. She is in a competition there in May, which is very important to people who do cross fit. I know this because the man behind the desk at the BeautifulMe Holistic WellPerson Spa told me so.
I would like to go very much. Especially I would like to go because my uncle lives in Madrid. He is jolly good at eating well and drinking red wine and has suggested that we come over and we will all party.
I would like to do this very much indeed. I would like to go and do it because parties are wasted on Number One Daughter who eats spinach and doesn’t drink, so she needs somebody to be a proxy for her for all that sort of thing, and I think I could really help out in that department.
I dont think we will actually go because of not having any money. It would be so expensive that even if we hadn’t wasted a single penny on being irresponsible this year so far we still wouldn’t be able to afford it.
Number Two Daughter and I thought about it the other day. We thought that we would like to get the train to London in a nice first class carriage with a glass of champagne, and then a business class flight to Madrid, with a comfortable lounge at the airport and a snooze on the plane. We would like to stay in the Madrid Ritz, probably in a suite, and have a few days after the competition looking round Madrid before hopping on the flight back.
The thinking behind this was that if you can’t afford to do something, you might as well not be able to afford to do something nice.
It would be lovely to go to Madrid and be in the sunshine. It has rained all day again here.
Yesterday was so fine and lovely I had bright hopes for Spring being on its way, but today the clouds have gathered again and the raindrops are bouncing off the paths.
It is too wet to plant anything, even if I wasn’t too idle at the moment., which I am. The soil is sodden and cold, and the worms are still gathered in their bleakly wormy refugee camps in the log heap.
I have barely been out in the garden at all.
I had thought yesterday that if today stayed fine I would go and plant the little lupin plants into the flower beds, and also some sweet pea seeds. I am embarrassingly late with these, they should have been in in November. All of these things need doing very badly indeed, but every time I think I might go out into the garden I think about the cold wind and getting poo underneath my fingernails, which is a very horrible experience, and then I think that I will do it another time.
Instead I stayed in the warm kitchen and made some healthy curry for Number Two Daughter and some curry with cream and cashew nuts for portly taxi drivers: and the aforementioned parsnip soup. After that I made the laundry soap, which is a satisfying occupation but not the best substance to be applied to cut fingers.
Whilst I was pottering around the kitchen I hauled Oliver downstairs and obliged him to attend to his prep. He was not at all pleased about this.
We spent some time chanting things like: ‘seven sevens are forty nine,’ which I hoped was right, my own recollection of tables being a bit vague and distant, whilst I grated the laundry soap and washed soup pans. This is called Multi Tasking, it is very difficult to wash up and try and remember the nine times table at the same time, I can tell you.
In the end I came out to work, which is where I am now, and I sat in the taxi for ages trying to think of something to tell you about.
Since I can’t think of a single thing I had probably better stop here.
