The best room in the house

We wake to a lovely spring morning and hang out a line of coloured washing after breakfast, before driving to Sarah's house to collect Louis. He is ready and eager to set off for the last day of his course, promising to be good today. When we arrive at the Grammar School, I take Louis to the coach and tell him to let me know how my grandson gets on today. It is glorious later, walking the dogs on the Westwood, the sun blazing down from a clear blue sky. Once we emerge from the woods and the meadow I put Normy on his lead, as the strong sunshine renders him almost blind, because of the scatter of light from his cataracts. He trots along at my side, still enjoying the sounds and scents of the common. The number of cows grazing on the Westwood increases daily, with large numbers of young bullocks recently joining the herd. After taking the dogs home, I call at the supermarket to restock on salad and to pick up a tin of tuna for the salad Nicoise that I intend to make for lunch. No swimming today as the garden in Tickton needs my attention. I start with trimming the hedge by hand and then weed all the flower beds at the back of the house, before eating lunch in the sun. All the spring flowers are now blooming and my rear garden remains my favourite room in the house. After lunch I start a Philip Roth novel, "Indignation", until it is time to collect Louis from football. I arrive at a quarter to three, in time to see the presentation of certificates and prizes. Louis has two medals round his neck and we sit together while the results of the raffle are read out. Louis is unlucky and has to be consoled when he fails to win a prize. His coach tells me that his behaviour has been impeccable today, and I tell Louis how happy this makes me feel. We drive home and after his bath, eat dinner in the garden, before taking Norman for his evening walk down Carr Lane, as far as the little bridge over the drain, which now has barely a trickle of water in the bottom. Louis needs the toilet urgently, so I pack him off into the bushes, with a generous piece of kitchen roll, that I carry in my pocket to clean up after Norman. He returns five minutes later and we continue on our way, playing "praise and pat", with Normy all the way home. I take Louis back to Sarah's house and then return and finish the Roth Novel about eleven. It is a recent book, that combines Roth's usual concerns regarding Jewish American identity, the repression of sexuality and the collision between the individual conscience and an essential right wing, paternalistic, American society. It is more economically drafted than his earlier work, but the outrage seems an echo from memory, rather than an intense current feeling. To bed for eleven thirty.