Ladderwork

Up early and feeling quite a bit better than yesterday. Lorraine and I walked around the corner and came back with a ladder and I spent some time up it, scooping out handfuls of mud and clumps of grass and other plants. There was one particular clump that had formed in the gutter above the door, the source of an aspiring Niagara which falls on your head when entering or leaving the house in the rain. I spattered all the gutter gunk down onto the floor, which went everywhere and took a long time to clear up afterwards. Thinking, as I did, of the Yeats poem The Circus Animal's Desertion: "Now that my ladder's gone,/I must lie down where all the ladders start/ In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.'

Into town after showering and Lorraine and I met Beth for Lunch. Beth looking tired after working really hard. We all had one of their excellent hamburgers before Beth returned to London.

Lorraine and I then went shopping in Churchill Square. All the Christmas decorations in place. Afterwards we caught a bus home, Lorraine phoning a cab for a woman of ninety waiting for a taxi, but deaf as a post.

Home and we had a quiet night in, instead of going to the party we'd been invited to, as both of us feeling a little under the weather.