I am feeling sad.
I have had an email this evening telling us that Lucy’s old school, the wonderful Queen Margaret’s in York, is closing at the end of this term.
The new Government has done this. Because of their determination that no child’s parents should be able to sacrifice everything to pay for them to have a brilliant education, that all schools should be State-controlled and subject to their own whims, they have brought a homely, happy school to its knees and forced it out of business.
All of those little girls will be sent somewhere else. They will be among strangers, possibly in classes with boys for the first time, and their safe, protected, gentle time at Queen Margaret’s will be over.
I am very cross, and sadder than I can say.
I am not going to rant here about the iniquities of our beloved leaders. All I can say is that I think that the war on private schools is short-sighted and cruel. Lucy went there because we worked and saved and woke up in the night to worry, and because we thought it was worth it.
I hope Keir Starmer gets haemorrhoids.
I am not going to rant. I am going to try not to think about it, and tell you about my day.
I have, of course, filled it completely with all sorts of petty domestic activities. I cleaned out my taxi in readiness for the weekend, which was a small happiness when I got into it this evening, after which I braved the wobbly ladder again to continue the painting at the front of the house.
I had to get as much done today as I could, because it is going to rain tomorrow, and probably for the next few days. Windermere has got all sorts of events on over the weekend, and so I imagine the Weather Gods will be looking forward to them.
I have finished the undercoat. Today I have started on the actual painting, the real, colourful bit.
It is pink.
Well, it is sort of pink. It is the sort of pink that could best be described as magenta.
There is a large peony in the front garden. It matches it precisely.
It is so bright and vivid that already people are going past and laughing. I do not mind this, it is a familiar experience whenever anybody else looks at something that I have done in accordance with my own preferred tastes.
I pained the doorframe first, because I did not like the idea of trying to carry a full tin of paint up the ladder. Then I did the bottom bit of the window, and finally, when I couldn’t put it off any longer, I dragged the ladder out and tottered up it, cautiously.
The ladder rests against the front of the house, and actually it is probably rather scarier than it looks, because when you look down you do not look at the garden, but into the deep chasm dug around the front of the house. The downstairs part of the house is underground, but there is a channel dug in front of it, just wide enough for you to go down and unblock the drains every now and again. Hence when you are clinging to a ladder it looks to the world as though you are about five feet from the ground, but actually you are dangling over a terrifying abyss.
I teetered and wobbled, and clung on very hard and tried my best to remember Mark’s strictures about not wanting any runs, drips or dribbles in the paint, but he is unlikely ever to look at my handiwork close up from a ladder, so with any luck he will not notice too much.
It is all going to need a second coat.
I did spill some paint, but not a lot, and most of it went in the garden.
I was very relieved indeed to slither uncomfortably down the ladder, splattering pink paint in my wake. Pretty much everything was pink by then, including me, my trousers, most of the garden, and both of my arms as far as my elbows. I do not know how that happened.
A chap came past with some leaflets a couple of times whilst I was packing up, wanting to know if I had thought about where I would spend eternity. I hadn’t even thought about getting ready for work by then, and so eternity was not high on my priority list, but I took one anyway, because of being polite. It was all about going to hell when you die if you are wicked when you are alive.
I am going to send it to Keir Starmer.
