sharing household chores (I hoovered the bedroom which is a beast of a job - the carpet has gone to holes and so there are four rugs covering the floor-board bits, which each try and throttle the vacuum cleaner in turn, and he hoovered the rest of the house, which is all hard surfaces except for the rug by the settee. I loaded and emptied the washing machine, he emptied and reloaded the dishwasher)
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time just pottering about (I am now halfway through hemming the borders of the quilt I started at the back on of last year, he was doing this and that and the other, here and there, upstairs and downstairs)
lunch together
shopping in town together (more drinks, more cake, watching the passers-by, feeling that we had earned this treat after the heavy work of the morning)
It's afternoon now, on the hottest day of the year so far. In twenty minutes my last piano pupil of term will arrive and play Debussy and Beethoven to me for half an hour.
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La cathédrale engloutie |
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| Sonata Pathétique, |
We have to seize these moments, and write them into the memory, to have and to hold against the busy-ness that awaits us over the next couple of weeks. We will be cleaning and clearing a close family relative's house, sorting through things that she has been storing up over the last thirty or so years. Hunting for family treasures, rescuing things that may be important for her, choosing what can be saved, and what must be discarded. We will need to take everything; tools, cleaning materials, as we have no idea what state the house will be in.
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| Preparing for the expedition |
So, today is a day to remember, to write into my diary, not for anything special, not for some grand event. It's very ordinariness is what I want to keep, to cherish, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, as long as we both shall live.
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