I woke up this morning stressed and (so I thought) in need of a walk to clear my head. I also woke up at 6:30 in the clutches of La Serpiente, so after I’d extricated myself and dressed, I went downstairs, planning to sneak out the back door and go for a walk.
Then I saw the back garden, covered in leaves from the maple trees in adjacent gardens. My father cleared these all away when he visited, but my lassitude (and getting home when it’s dark) means I hadn’t looked out the window to see the lawn in daylight.
So instead of going for a walk, I spent 90 minutes raking leaves. This was quite a relaxing way to start the day, although my wife tells me I looked very awkward doing it. I had to figure out an efficient way to organise my raking – I ended up with 10 piles of leaves, each two rake lengths from the next pile, and then struggled to pick up all the leaves and throw them in the bin. But that’s done now, at least until the next leaf fall. (Tomorrow, probably.)
The rest of the day was mostly children’s birthday parties, which really wore La Serpiente out. She had two hours of bouncy castles in the morning, and a party in the afternoon where at the end she came to me complaining that she wanted to go home and read. A child after my own heart.
We put both girls to bed, and zoned out. We’d both had a few drinks at the second party, which was nice, but I then had to play two games of Blood Bowl; a draw, and a 5-2 win, which finished the evening off nicely. And so to bed…