Something nice happened this morning.
A small parcel arrived in the post, which turned out to be a book, written by my Cambridge tutor, and dispatched to me for no other reason than that she thought I might enjoy reading it.
I have only read the first few pages so far, but she was right, I am going to enjoy reading it very much.
Sometimes life is full of small happinesses.
It is Friday, and I have just arrived at work, so I am not exactly holding my breath for happinesses, small or otherwise, in the next few hours. My suspicion is that there will be an awful lot of hanging about on the taxi rank, with occasional interruptions by the sort of person who can’t afford to come to the Lake District when the sun is shining, and so takes their chances with an economy coach trip in January.
Mostly those people are not very drunk but they are unlikely to tip lavishly.
Probably they will have a bad leg as well.
I do not really mind this because I have now got a good book with which to occupy myself.
Actually you would have felt very pleased with the world had you come here on a coach trip today, because the weather has been truly splendid. It is very cold, and a little cloudy and damp, with freezing fog last night and an icy bite in the air, but it is calm and still, and every now and again the sun peers out, anxiously, wondering whether or not it might be springtime yet.
The snowdrops are out, and we saw a squirrel on our walk this morning. Roger Poopy was longing to chase it, but even he could see that it was on the other side of a fence. The squirrel knew this as well, and sat contentedly at the side of the little beck, stretching and yawning and washing its whiskers, and ignoring poor Roger’s frantic whimpering.
It is too early in the year for making hay, but the sun was shining so I thought I would make the most of it, and turned my attention to the back yard.
This has looked like the site of several minor catastrophes for some time. This is, of course, exactly what has been happening, and Mark has not had the time to do anything about it.
I am more interested in tidy backyards than Mark is, and so I set to.
There was a stack of firewood to be sawn up, and then a very lot of sweeping. I stacked firewood in the conservatory, where it will dry, and chucked the rest on the log pile. The house is full, and the log pile is looking healthy, I have probably got enough wood to last me for a couple of weeks. I am not exactly sure what I will do then, but I am quite sure that something will occur to me. Mark has told me several times whereabouts at the farm he has left the dry wood, and I am almost sure that I was paying sufficient attention to be able to find it.
I cut back the bits of garden that had started overgrowing over the path and composted all the stringy white remains of the nasturtiums. I swept and swept, until I had emptied six buckets of sawdust and splinters and dead leaves into the dustbin, but when I had finished the yard looked, if not exactly like a setting from a Disneyland-designed garden, at least fairly respectable and tidy. I can see the ground again, which is good, and I am am not going to be cold, at least not for the next week or two.
I was surprised to realise that it was almost four o’clock by the time I had finished, and extremely late to be starting to eat porridge, although obviously I ate it anyway, after which time I dealt with some tiresome emails too dull to tell you about here – National Car Parks, DVLA, milk deliveries and Autoparts invoices – and had to start rushing around to get ready for work, which, as you know, is where I am now.
You will be pleased to hear that Mark has reached his oil rig without incident. It was such an early start this morning that he fell asleep on the helicopter during the crossing, which suggests to me that he is becoming very blasé about adventures.
I am going to go and read my book.
