I am supposed to be resting my sore knee.
As a result of this I had to make the dogs promise not to tell anybody when we set off up the fell this morning.
Mark said that they would be fine in the Library Gardens, but they were so excited about our morning excursion that of course we needed to do something a bit more rewarding than that.
It is terribly cold here, as I suppose it must be at your house unless you live somewhere foreign. If you are one of those fortunate individuals, in Australia or California, you might be pleased to hear that pretty much the whole population of the UK is envying you. It is so terribly cold here that I have opened up the vents on the fire so that there is smoke coming out of the chimney, and I don’t care if the fire brigade thinks that it is dangerous.
The dogs are pretty good at keeping secrets, so we ploughed off over the recreation ground and up the fell side.
It is very different up there.
In the village it is cold and blustery. Out on the fell the wind was bellowing with a long-drawn-out howl that hurt my ears even with my teacosy hat on.
Snow blew constantly around my legs in little eddies and whirls, making wave shapes around the rocks. I had my scarf on today, and I wrapped it around my face and pretended that I was Ranulf Fiennes. I have got a new one of his books out of the library but not read it yet. He is jolly brave about snow, he amputated the ends of his own fingers when they got frostbite, and once he took his socks off and a toe came off with them.
My toes stayed fairly cosy inside my boots, even when I accidentally fell into a fairly deep snowdrift once. We struggled and staggered, but we made it up to the top.
I took my gloves off at the top to give the dogs a sausage. I could not have done that if I was Ranulf Fiennes, so I don’t suppose it was that bad really. Then I set off back down, and the wind that had been slamming into my face all the way up almost knocked me off my feet.Roger Poopy did not help with this because of having discovered a new game in which he runs ahead and then hides behind snowdrifts pretending to be a wolf. When we reach him he barks loudly and unexpectedly, leaps out and hurls himself on us. This is funny to tell people about later but a tiresome surprise at the time.
I felt very pleased with myself when I got back home, because I could think with satisfaction of how intrepid I was. Then I unearthed the vegetables out of the bottom of the fridge and made a thick pan of broth to give Mark for his dinners.
I fried bacon and garlic and onions, and added gallons of red wine, cream and tomato pasta. We have got lots of red wine for cooking because we have got a whole box in the cupboard that has inexplicably gone off. It is not drinkable but is ace when used instead of water in all cooking.
I was just pondering our domestic catering arrangements when the doorbell rang, and it was the postman bringing a present from Number One Daughter and Number One Son-In-Law, by means of congratulation for my bleeping achievements.
It was a cook book written by the chap whose restaurant we visited, Jamie Oliver. I have since discovered that he has got several restaurants, which he jolly well deserves, because his cooking is ace. I was very pleased indeed about the cookbook, and shall be experimenting over the next few days.
We have not gone to work tonight. This is because it is very tiresome to sit in a taxi for hours and hours whilst everybody else stays at home and does not need a taxi, especially if you are Mark, whose heater does not work. He came in from his non-profit day job frozen to the core, even with a thermal vest, a shirt, a padded shirt, a jumper, a boiler suit and coat on. They have been out on the coast putting masts up. He ate a great deal of the broth with chunks of home made bread, and we think that we could perhaps go to bed early.
I am pleased with that outcome to the day.
