Something too terrible for words happened last night.
On our way home from work in the middle of the night I tripped over Mark’s stack of logs at the end of the garden and fell headlong, bashing myself to bits and worse, tearing a dreadful hole in my beautiful boots.
Mark was as shocked as I was. It was a true calamity, because the boots are my very, very favourite thing. They were a present, and are sheepskin lined right down to the toes, and my feet are gloriously warm and safe inside them. They are so comfortable I don’t even like to take them off when I come into the house, and have to remind myself about carpets and mud.
I get very cold feet in the taxi and my boots have been a joy, and I had torn them and bruised my elbows and knees. I was so sad that I couldn’t go to sleep, and sat up in the kitchen for a while, reading a book about religious extremism and drinking my friend Kate’s sloe gin.
This morning Mark telephoned the sheepskin boot company, who were very sympathetic and explained that they do repairs and would simply put a new panel on to the boot. They very kindly sent us a postage label by email so that we wouldn’t even have to pay for a stamp, so as it turned out I had given myself a headache for nothing.
Our joint takings last night turned out to be £9.60 so we couldn’t go to Asda. Instead I went to Booths and carefully budgeted it to buy some melon and some olives, which I used to make ham and cheese for dinner seem much more interesting.
Mark spent most of the day loading the stack of wood on to his trailer so it wasn’t in the garden being a trip hazard any more. He took it to the farm, which turned out to be an adventure because of a flat tyre which came right off the wheel and collapsed in the road. He carried on and drove the trailer back to the farm anyway, although he said it was interesting.
I wasn’t there, so I missed all of that, but he said it was especially exciting because our trailer is in the shed full of scrap metal to be taken to Lancaster, and so he had borrowed his sister’s. After that he spent a lot of the day putting a new wheel on it.
I did all of the usual domestic things like washing things and wiping things and tidying things away, and then I made an enormous pot of tea and belted upstairs to sit at the computer thinking about writing my book.
The characters in my book go through a town near Oliver’s school where there is a pub that I thought they might visit. I was excited about this idea, except then I looked it on TripAdvisor and I discovered that everybody thought that the people who run the pub were rude, don’t light the fire or serve food, and that they charge extra to go and look at the interesting geological features in the garden.
I am not sure if I would behave any better if I ran a pub, which is partly why I don’t, but I thought that perhaps I wouldn’t like my characters to go there after all, even if I employed a new landlord. After that I spent ages reading interesting things about pubs so that I could invent one. This was so fascinating that I got completely distracted from the point of being there, which was to write a best seller and to save our family from financial ruin.
Mark came home and we went for another swim. We have been twice now and I have still got a fat bottom, this exercise is over rated.
You have seen the picture of my boots before, but I have put it at the top again just to show you how perfect they are. The fluffy bit at the top goes down inside them all the way to the toes, they are contentedness for feet. My feet are cold now.
I hope they are mended soon.
