Dancing attendance on children (well, one child, to be precise). This involves fashioning things out of old orange boxes and jam jars, baking cakelike stuff, reading stories, watching The Last Unicorn (daughter’s current ambition is to be a unicorn) and trying not to weep when woken at ungodly hours to admire a drawing.
Dancing attendance on cats. Our cats require constant slavery, sauced with adoration.
Dancing attendance on snails and tadpoles. Yes, it’s a zoo here. The snails have refused to eat anything I’ve offered them, including the fresh young leaves of my hostas. My child is a picky eater, my cats are picky eaters, even the snails are picky eaters. Meanwhile Clara has decided that the only water she can drink is the tadpoles’ water; tragedy looms.
Planting seeds. Hurrah for spring!
Darning. Darning! We found an old linen rabbit in a pretty dress, a childhood toy of mine, and E fell in love with her but alas the moths had too. I have taught myself to darn incredibly badly and the poor rabbit looks a bit leprous to say the least but is nearly repaired and I am feeling a moderate sense of achievement. Also I am able to say ‘Darn’ a lot as in the paragraph above and it is very very funny every time. Really.
Learning the Belgian Highway Code. It’s only taken me about three years to reach this level of incompetence; I soldier on while secretly believing the roads are safer without me behind the wheel.
Listening to The Old Dance School. Especially this song, which I found via Myth and Moor. I play it over and over, I’m addicted to the second song, ‘John Ball’ (begins around the nine-minute mark) and bellow ‘Sing, John Ball, and tell it to them all / Long be the day that’s dawning’ out of the window, startling passing cats, hens and tadpoles (I don’t sing when humans are about as, well let’s just say that the Music Fairy didn’t grace my christening).
Reading a lot. But not feeling inspired to write about what I’ve read even though it’s been good. However, I’ve remembered in time that Elizabeth Goudge Day is imminent and am Making an Effort.
Amassing books. No matter how stuffed the bookcases or slender the purse, I am unable to stop myself. Insert sound of evil cackling here.
(Me, my daughter, the zoo. You might know it as the fifteenth-century Flemish tapestry The Lady and the Unicorn: À mon seul désir; Musée national du Moyen Âge, Paris; found here)