We had a whole day without rain yesterday; it blew and blustered, of course, but there were minutes when the sun pushed through a gap and showed its face. I know that lots of you are worse off than us in the Shropshire hills. Some of you have ice and snow and heat waves and biblical floods. I am truly sorry for all of you, but somehow that doesn’t make it any easier to bear what we have here: rain and permanent grey cloud cover. It’s like telling somebody to eat up their greens because there are starving children in Africa who’d give their eyeteeth for a plate of food. Your own experience of misery is always greater than an imagined one.
Millie and I grabbed the opportunity and took the lane up the hill; only tarmac walking is possible at the moment. Small streams of water running downhill met us and the ditches were full to bursting. No matter, at least we weren’t drenched. Even Leonard Cohen coming over the earphones couldn’t dampen my newly resurgent spirits.
I said yesterday that I was going to explain about music in our house. Beloved is a professional musician. All his life he has played with, and for, extraordinary performers, singers and soloists. He is incapable of listening to a piece of music, any piece of music, without judging and dissecting and analysing. It used to drive me mad. In the end I gave up unless I knew it was something or somebody he would listen to without comment. My tastes are eclectic, you might even say, indiscriminate. For me it all depends on the mood of the moment. Having finally got round to modern technology, late, as with everything, I am now able to indulge my musical preferences at any time, even in the same room as Beloved. Mind you, I still have to be careful when and where I give croaky voice in enthusiastic accompaniment!
If only I had had children to introduce me to the powers of modern technology; I could have been dancing and singing years ago. Oh, hang on, I did have! One of these days I might even tell you what happened to them.
