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I have pretended to be stupid for so long that I have actually become stupid and I know that my similar comedic flirtation with insanity will one day lead to my own actual insanity. To be fair it might already of happened. The point of insanity is that only others can tell. Do let me know if you see any signs.
I realised today that I had been a fair-weather stone-clearer. Oh yes, it’s all very easy when the land is freshly ploughed and there are no crops and the ground is bone dry and dusty (though it occasionally leads to a mouth full of powdered soil when you attempt to kick the stones into the wind). But today it had rained heavily and I discovered what a gruesome job this can become. I picked through the clods of earth tonight, after the rainfall, and my hands became sticky with mud. As I carried rocks to the cairn in the darkness I suspected that I might be dirtying my brand new hoodie, but I didn’t realise how much until I was home.
To carry on with my mission through all weathers and when the ground is frozen will test my mettle. We shall see if this is just a phase or the real deal.
The lunchtime dog walk was up the hill and away from the field, and it was tricky to remember that I didn’t need to clear the footpath of stones as well. What would be the point in that? But on the other two walks I was around the field - I was counting stones this morning and nearly got to 100 on the first side of the field, before I bumped into another dog walker and had a chat and lost count. But I reckon in the few days I’ve been doing this I have already cleared in excess of 1000 stones and yet to look at the field you would think nothing had changed. The huge wall I hope to incidentally build by tossing the stones randomly into the hedgerows and long grass is not apparent in any way and the field (partly due to the extra ploughing) looks just as stony. This lack of progress after so much work might put some men off, but I am made of stronger stuff. Even if being covered in icky mud is a bit much.
I should have mentioned that I am devoting the rest of my blogging life to covering how all this goes. I know I’ve had some hobbies before that I’ve got into and then got bored with, but this is more than a hobby. This is my life now.
I took Phoebe to her gym again and again she was moaning all morning that she wanted to be with her mummy. I reminded her of last Saturday’s failed attempt to get to soft play and realised that that was probably the incident that had changed her fully back to team Mummy. And fair enough.
I tried to do a little prep for RHLSTP, which I cannot believe starts again on Monday. There’s still about 100 tickets left, so you can probably turn up and buy on the door or book here.
Hopefully it will do better in about 10 days when it’s coming out. What? Where did the summer go?
