It did not snow after all.
In fact, I was surprised to see watery sunshine bathing the garden this morning when I opened the curtains. This did not last long, and we were shrouded in cloud again before I had even made it to the bottom of the fell, but it was a brightly hopeful moment, and one which brightened the snowdrops with the promise of maybe-one-day-soon springtime.
Despite this it was jolly cold. Not as cold as it is in Canada. Number Two Daughter called this afternoon to tell me that it is minus twenty one there. I had to grit my teeth a bit in the icy wind blustering over the fells this morning, but it was not minus twenty one.
I was supremely indifferent to the weather in any case, having a comfortably adequate stack of logs and a fridge full of all catering necessities. There are not a lot of the latter since I am largely living on fish sandwiches and porridge at the moment, although obviously not mixed together, that would not be rather too reminiscent of Japanese prison camps for my liking. Lots of things go well with porridge, mostly yoghurt and bananas in my case, but not fish.
I am wrapping the sandwiches, which I suppose are not strictly sandwiches, because they are made of a rolled-up circle of round flat bread, in waxed cloths, and – apologies for taking so long to get to the point of the story – this afternoon was my day for re-waxing the cloths.
I loathe cling film, which strikes me as such a waste of human endeavour, fancy having whole factories devoted to the production of something invisible and mildly tacky which will be thrown away almost immediately it is used. Over the last few years I have taken to substituting beeswax-soaked cloths wherever possible. Mostly this is because it is cheap, and because I have read some scaremongery stuff about it sending you doolally and that turtles might think it is jellyfish and accidentally eat it, but also it is becoming a fashionable thing to do, so I can consider myself virtuously ahead of the modern environmental trend.
I expect it will stay fashionable until plastic manufacturers manage to launch a successful guilt-advertising campaign explaining that beeswax-robbery is harming bees, at which point I will become a pariah.
I have got a pan and a dish which I keep for no other purpose than making things like candles and soap. This saves a lot of frustrating scrubbing because wax does not come off things very easily. I sawed off a large lump of wax and set it all on the stove to melt whilst I cut up apples and made the sandwich, all of which were to be wrapped in the newly waxed cloth.
Misfortunately the wax took rather longer than I had expected, and the sandwich got a bit dried up, but I have just eaten it anyway, and it was all right, and in the end I managed to soak about ten cloths, which set very satisfactorily on the rail above the fire, and made the kitchen smell wonderful.
I expect probably you will not be surprised to hear that I got beeswax everywhere, and had to spend the next half an hour trying to soak it out of my warm cashmere jersey with a hot iron and an old cloth because I had forgotten to put an apron on.
Still, in the end it was done, and I have a drawer filled with neatly folded, wax-stiffened cloths, and a feeling of smug self-satisfaction. It was a day for cloth things, because some kindly persons who are closing a local guest house were getting rid of everything, and they had a huge stack of towels they said that I could have.
You might remember that I am planning to rebuild the arches in the conservatory at some time when I get round to it, and they will need some considerable wrapping with towels to hold the moisture underneath the moss, so I went round this morning and lugged the whole lot back here.
There were three enormous sacks full of large, fluffy white towels.
Some of them are brand new, so I suspect they will be repurposed as actual towels. If anybody wants some, do give me a shout. Mark said that if any were left over then he would have them as rags for his workshop, but he is most certainly not having any of the nice ones.
I am pleased with the day.
I have been most satisfactorily productive.
