Friday, December 20, 2019

Early mornings at Hepworth Towers

Every morning for the last three months, Dave - who gets up hours before me - has come into the bedroom while I am drinking my first mug of Yorkshire tea in order to recount the latest outrage from Trump. I wish he wouldn't. 

For one thing, it is not a good start to the day, and for another...it doesn't matter what awful thing Trump does, he can no longer surprise me. I say this to Dave, but still he tells me. Every morning. 

On Wednesday Dave went out before I was awake, and when I woke up I breathed a sigh of pleasant freedom, thinking I'd have a Trump-free morning. What bliss...able to begin the day with no news from here and no news from there. We have sufficient problems on this side of the Atlantic without dwelling on the US horror show. 

I got out of bed, switched on the fairy lights on the weeping fig in the bedroom, and fetched my tea. Then I picked up my iPad to check my emails and found an early morning email with an attachment from Dave, entitled 'Nuts!' Inside was a domestic message, and then 'What do you think of the letter?' 

He had attached a copy of a letter from Trump to Nancy Pelosi, beginning thus:




There was I, thinking I'd escaped the morning bulletin on Trump, and here instead was a six page bloody letter to wade through. Reader, I didn't. 

Yesterday, Thursday, I woke up at 5 a.m., too late to go back to sleep but also too early to switch on the light, so I thought, 'Ooh, I know, I'll listen to the next episode of The Railway Children on BBC Sounds.' 

I found this delightful programme by chance. A young actress [sic] is reading The Railway Children in 14 entrancing episodes. It's a wonderful antidote to everything OUT THERE. 

Yesterday's chapter was entitled The Amateur Fireman and featured a part of the book I'd forgotten, where the children rescue a baby from a burning barge. It was so exciting! I was on the edge of my pillow! It was far too exciting for a gentle musing doze, and at the end of the episode I switched on the light, over-heated and charged up for the day, and it was still only half past five. It took me some time to recover.

I've just realised that a biographer could use this as a vivid illustration of something about me, but it's only 6.52 a.m. and I am still drinking my first mug of tea, so you'll have to decide what it is.





2 comments:

Sally said...

Glad to see you haven't lost your sense of humour! Enjoyed all your blogs this year, the good, the bad & the ugly! And your fabulous novel๐Ÿ’›
Happy 'off' Christmas to you and yours.Sally ๐ŸŽ„๐ŸŒŸ☃️๐Ÿ“š๐Ÿฅ‚

Sue Hepworth said...

Thank you, Sally. That's such a heart-warming comment. Thank you for sticking with the blog, and for your plaudit about my novel. You wouldn't like to be my publicist, would you?

I hope you have a lovely Christmas! xxx