I continue to mend. Indeed, I am close to the point where “mending” is not easy to determine, since last week’s norm was so low. I got up and got dressed this morning, instead of slouching around all day in my dressing gown. I stayed up all morning, instead of going back to bed after breakfast.  Those are the measures by which I can claim to be “mending”. James has gone back to London. Alexander was willing to make the trip and to take over for him here, but not keen on bank holiday traffic. We decided against.

 

Thank you for your comments about my peculiar cat. Kirsten, I think you’re thinking in the right direction.  Poor Paradox thinks she is defending something – her house or me or a non-existent box of kittens. She has recently been spayed (alas) and may be suffering from upset hormones. James has cats, and his trousers may smell of them to the sensitive feline nose. I’m sure Perdita enjoyed having someone to sympathise with her about That Cat.

 

I’m nearly finished with Mansfield Park, and have arrived at what are certainly the most distressing chapters in all of Jane Austen, if not all of English literature – when Fanny Price, who has been raised at Mansfield Park since she was 10, goes home to Portsmouth for the first time, at 19, to visit her family. Her mother is Lady Bertram’s sister. Austen explains all that, brilliantly, in the first few pages. Fanny is distressed at the disorder of the house. She is deeply embarrassed when a friend – a suitor, in fact – from the Mansfield orbit comes to visit. She longs to go back there but everyone seems to have forgotten her – travel wasn’t easy. She needed to be sent for, and arrangements made for the journey. Fortunately I know that everything turns out all right in the end – how could it do otherwise? – but these chapters are still painful to read.

 

Rachel suggests that I go on to The Towers of Trebizond, a brilliant idea. I don’t know where my copy is, but I’ll buy a new one for the iPad.  After that, I hope I’ll be ready for fresh books again.

 

No knitting yet – how long has it been now? Four days? The next row is plain-knit and I feel sure I’ll be up to it tomorrow.

 

Wordle: Another distressing day. My starters gave me four greens. I could think of two letters for the empty slot. I chose the less-obvious one, thinking it to be the more-likely. I was wrong. Four for me. Nobody had it much easier, but Rachel distinguished herself with a three. She had my ???, grn, grn, grn, grn configuration by line two. And must have guessed right. Ketki and Alexander were the other fours. Five for Theo and Mark. Six for Thomas (most unusual). Nothing from Roger, still at sea.

 

Now I must find something brisk and simple to eat, probably Complan. Then bed, in time for The Archers. At naptime I had difficulty swinging my legs into bed – is’s rather high. It was a scary moment.