Things That Brought Joy - Thursday

courtesy the Guardian website

Today was short on joy, perhaps I could call it satisfactory. There was lots of rain on and off, for which we ought to be very grateful. The media, the water companies, even the government are telling us that we must preserve water; many areas in the UK already have hosepipe bans in place. This is a country where mild disquiet very quickly turns to panic. On the home front, neither Kelly, my cleaner, whose daughter was poorly, nor Gardener, for whom it was too wet, turned up. I was pleased, due to a poor night I felt far too tired to do much of anything myself. How is it that my knee always knows when the weather turns wet and windy? There I am, snug and cosy in my bed, I've switched off the light and compose myself to sleep when my knee starts aching. The rest of me is fine, it's the bit that connects the thighbone to the shinbone which plays sillybuggers. I stay in bed for an hour before I try a couple of paracetamol and a massage with arnica oil : no difference. I reach for a sleeping pill. Another hour later comes the second sleeping pill. Result: the following day I am a zombie. After lunch I take a nap, what used to be called 'forty winks' is now a power nap. Beloved is very kind, he takes Benno for his walk round the castle. I very briefly watch a pair of camera-shy goldfinches do the bookends theme, but they fly off the minute my camera clicks. How can they hear this through the glass of the kitchen window? The Guardian website has a much clearer picture of the little beauties.

The day was fast becoming frazzled, desultory. I tried a spot of editing. Progress on the memoir is painfully slow; I recently wrote a chapter about a very sad event in my early childhood about a stray dog and its short and brutal life and death. It took a lot of courage to take this memory out of its hideyhole and look at it in the sharp and unfeeling light of a computer screen. Writing it made me cry for the sad, lonely little child of long ago and attempting to edit the chapter today was a mistake. I must do this when I'm feeling bright and confident, it'll be hard enough even then. 

Tomorrow we are having friends to dinner. It is  possible that both Kelly and Gardener turn up and I won't have a lot of time to prepare a meal. I shall probably cheat and serve a bought pudding. 

I've already made the smoked salmon paté which is part 

of the starter, which means that I'll only have to 

cook the main course from scratch. 

There'll be six of us.

Laying out crockery, cutlery and polishing glasses today

also makes tomorrow less daunting.

To recap: Joy? Maybe not. But I have a kind husband who takes my dog out for me. There are sweet birds to watch. I have the time to take a nap to recover from last night and I have a pleasant evening with friends tomorrow night to look forward to.

And we finally seem to be getting the much needed rain.