The day started off very splendidly well when Elspeth telephoned to tell me that she was enjoying reading my book very much.
So far its only really regular readers have been Mark and a kindly friend from school who has very supportively and patiently ploughed through every single chapter and emailed encouraging remarks for me to read when I get up in the mornings.
Without this I would have given up long ago. It is jolly hard to write anything without somebody saying: “What happens next?” and worse still if nobody is telling you that it is wonderful and bound to be a best seller. On days when Mark forgets to tell me this I have got to remind him.
I sent it to Elspeth who reluctantly agreed to read it, probably, when she wasn’t too busy, perhaps. Obviously then she forgot, for ages and ages until last night when she had earache, or some similarly awful ailment, and thought that she would distract herself by reading a bit of it.
She sent me an email at about half past one in the morning telling me that it had kept her awake, and then very kindly rang me when she got up this morning to tell me that actually she had quite enjoyed it.
I was more pleased than I can say. It is so nice when people make appreciative noises, and I felt quite inspired to write more.
I didn’t, though.
Instead I washed things and tidied things. I made chocolate cakes and coffee and walnut chocolate to eat in the taxis, and cooked another thirty sausages. I made the chocolate cake by crumbling up the uneaten end of the Christmas cake and warming it with syrup and butter and melted chocolate and almonds and brandy. I set it in a tin to cool and poured salted chocolate over the top. I am eating it now. It is ace.
I felt very pleased with myself about all of this.
Mark went to the bank and poured our weekend’s takings into the black hole of the overdraft and I went to the post office and spent another fortune posting things, because of everything that Oliver had forgotten to take with him.
Then Mark went to the farm and I had a cup of tea with a visiting taxi driver. He is going to help Mark on the allotment, and had come to talk about horse poo.
You had forgotten that we have got an allotment, hadn’t you? I wish I had. It has been a source of guilt for ages.
I like doing gardening very much, except that somehow there just never seems to be time. By the time we have finished driving taxis and emptying dogs and building camper vans and writing books and keeping the house tidy and getting the children from school, there just never seems to be any day left. At any rate, not the sort of day that you want to do anything with other than sink into a chair with a glass of wine and your shoes off.
Mark and the other taxi driver think that they might have another go, because of it being easier to do digging when there are two men doing it. It becomes an encouragingly man thing then, and they lean on their spades and feel manly together. Personally I think Mark is quite mental, because even if there are two of them, probably we are not ever going to have more time than we do now until we have retired, which we won’t because of not having a pension.
It might be the sort of thing that would be quite nice if I ever managed to become JK Rowling. It would be splendid to have a bit more time to do the allotment. If somebody bought my book we might make enough money to take Tuesdays and Wednesdays off in the winter when it is rubbish, and then do things in the garden and the allotment instead.
The picture illustrates the increasing need to consider this. It is my garden this morning. Spring is thinking about springing.
It is cheering to think of the season changing.
I won’t be sorry.
