I have been feeling peculiarly flat and uninspired today.
I was not certain to what cause I might attribute this gentle malaise, but it was definitely there, a sort of sleepy absence of excitement or enthusiasm for life.
That is not at all to say that I felt unhappy, very far from it. In fact if I had to describe my general state of being I expect I would have said ‘very contented indeed’.
However there has been a wrung-out limpness to my soul today, an unwillingness to bounce into life. When I went off to work this afternoon I thought that I was entirely relieved that my gainful occupation would not involve me in any activity that was any more onerous than most people’s commute to work.
I have done all of the usual things that I do with a day. I have walked with the dogs, and pegged the washing on the line and filled our picnic bags and swept the hearth. As well as all these little activities I have also emptied the dishwasher of last night’s Age Concern china and finished the last little bits of tidying up: but although I have been organised and busy, the cheerful energy which usually carries me through it all was just not there.
As well as all of this, today was the day when we had to say goodbye to Lucy, which is always a bit sad, because she was going with her friend back to school.
They collected her at lunchtime, and we hugged her goodbye and waved her off before we dashed off to work to make the most of the bank holiday double time. Her friend’s mother phoned this evening to tell me that they had dropped the girls at school and that they were perfectly happy. They had had a lovely lunch together in an Italian restaurant, and Lucy had promised to call me herself to reassure me that she had arrived safely and everything was fine.
You will not be surprised to hear that of course she must have instantly forgotten, because the telephone remained entirely silent for the rest of the night. I haven’t yet found anything that she has left behind which will require to be posted with extreme urgency, so I don’t suppose I will hear from her until half term, which is in four weeks.
Of course I don’t mind this, it would be terrible if she was on the phone every night. It is much better that they are both so busy that they don’t give their parents a second thought. The whole point of boarding is that they like it better than home, Lucy once said that it was like having one long sleepover, and that she felt as though she had got lots of sisters.
I like it as well. I thought when they went that I would miss them terribly, and for almost all of the first fortnight that was true. After that I became accustomed to a tidy house, and although I am always sad when they go, and desperately excited when they come back, it is very nice not to have the washing.
It was a good job I didn’t have anything urgent that I ought to be doing this evening. I should have gone swimming, but I was too idle, it was easer to sit in comfortable plumpness on the taxi rank and eat biscuits.
I hopped into Mark’s taxi during a quiet spell to tell him all about it, and we thought that perhaps the thing to do would be to get the camper van back on the road and have some little holidays just to ourselves on the occasional Wednesday night when nobody wanted to get in a taxi.
This seemed like a very splendid idea indeed, and I felt a little spark of interest in life begin to rekindle.
Mark thought that he could grind some valves down and bash a piston straight and he might have it working again.
I thought I might make some more new curtains for it.
Mark said that it needed a bit more welding but it would be just fine.
We thought perhaps it might be all right to get things done to it this week and then go down to Oliver’s school in it on Thursday night. They are having a concert on Friday morning, and a parents’ meeting where they give you lunch and then tell you if your son has been a toe rag or not during the year. Lucy’s school gives you a lot of wine first just to make sure that you are in absolutely the right frame of mind, which I think is very sensible.
I think this is an absolutely fantastic idea. A night in the camper van and then a concert at Oliver’s school will be ace.
Suddenly it really feels like springtime.
Hurrah.
