The sun shone today.
This has become such an unfamiliar event recently that I was genuinely surprised when I opened the curtains this morning.
I was so excited about it that I stripped all of the sheets off the bed in order that they could be washed and then dried out of doors. Such an unexpected opportunity is another of those things that becomes thrilling to you when you reach a certain age. This is because it is realistically possible but with just a tantalising hint of uncertainty. Other adventures fill that space when you are younger.
Also I like sheets that smell of garden far better than I like ones that smell faintly of dog and of Mark’s feet.
My feet do not smell of anything except expensive soap and shoe leather, just for the record.
Mark buzzed off to the farm to continue creating his new portable shed. It has got to be portable otherwise the Lake District National Park Authority will tell him that it is development and make him take it down.
Obviously we will apply for planning permission properly, but thought it was unlikely that it would be granted and the new shed built before yesterday. Yesterday was the deadline for getting all of our things out of the old shed, and we have failed to meet it, rather magnificently.
The old shed was an actual aircraft hangar, not just the size of one in the way people exaggerate shed sizes when they are speaking dramatically. It had been used for housing aeroplanes before Mark bought the bits and rebuilt it.
After that he filled it with stuff.
You will not be surprised to hear that it is proving problematic to get it all into the back of the car, and also that I do not wish him to store it in the living room at home.
Hence he is creating his new Mobile Shed, which is pictured above with the bony framework of the work bench newly installed. His sister is not exactly being patient about the time it is taking, but I don’t suppose she is surprised.
I left him to get on with this by himself, apart from the dogs, obviously, because of having plenty of my own things that I wanted to do.
I went shopping.
I think Windermere must be just about the only place left on earth where you can still buy sherbert in a paper bag.
I didn’t buy sherbert in a paper bag, of course, because I am not six any more, and even though it comes in a vibrant range of pleasing colours, I was not in the least tempted. Sometimes it is a bit sad to be fifty.
I had gone to the sweet shop to replenish the camper van supply of Jelly Babies. I like the sweet shop because of rows and rows of interesting jars, and a slightly about-to-be-diabetic smell. I was very tempted by peanut brittle and fizzy bonbons, but in the end resisted because of getting sticky everywhere and my trousers still fitting me next week.
I posted a letter at the Post Office, and went to the butcher for sausages and dog bones. Then I felt pleased with myself and with Windermere for never having quite escaped the nineteen seventies.
The butcher suggested that I had some more dog bones and made stock, but I declined as the war is over now. In any case it is half term, most of my cooking includes fish fingers, and I think even Mark might baulk at the addition of beef gravy.
I was having a day of doing housework. I should have included dusting in this activity, but didn’t because of the tediousness of it. I spent ages washing pots and folding up washing, and growling to myself about the tiresomeness of not being able to afford to pay a full-time domestic servant.
After all of that I cooked a chicken and then fried some sweet potato slices in butter and garlic in order to make our picnics interesting again. We have been eating a lot of slices of raw carrot, which are becoming dull even when dipped in chilli-and-grape chutney.
I poured the butter and garlic over the dog bones to give them a continental flair afterwards, and also because it is not socially acceptable to pour oil down the sink, it is always best if you can put it into a dog somehow.
I put the bones into the oven, which I regretted after twenty minutes, because it made the house smell of cooking dog bones, so I took them out again. I put the tray of bones outside the back door and forgot about it until I fell over it when I was bringing the washing in.
In the end Mark came home and it was time to go to work, which is where I am now. We are not making very much money but I have got a good book.
The dogs liked the bones very much.
