Everything

Today there was everything. I woke to see six hares racing around the field like kids playing tag. The light was poor and the sky low and murky, but the intense cold had lifted, and maybe they were celebrating. I've been told to imagine them wearing fur-lined onesies (as if they'd be so vulgar) and think of how warm they must be in all weathers. Once dressed in my twosie I set about painting the very dark brown curtain pole in my sitting room a nice light colour, Job's White by Farrow and Ball which is really a shade of  putty. Pretty putty. I thought this was probably a daft idea, especially the 16 rings, but it was a doddle, and by lunchtime it had all been sanded down and given two coats. One more to go. My plan was to watch Kontiki at Aldeburgh cinema in the afternoon, but it's Six Nations Rugby time, and Ireland were playing Italy, so that couldn't be missed. In the event I recorded the match to watch later because I just had to get out for a walk. And what thrills awaited me outside.

The holes in the lane have been filled in, and the last of the hedges clipped back. This latter job done by tractors is a labour-saving alternative to the old laying down of hedges that farm hands took so much pride in doing every winter, and it's brutal and ugly. But once the leaves come it results in a much thicker barrier and the savage chops cannot be seen. To my delight the ditches all along the lane, for a mile or so, had been cleared out too. It's a job I itch to perform, and which is rarely done any more. But how lovely it is to see the water running freely as it is meant too, instead of  struggling through a weed- and detritus-filled jungle. The primroses along the banks have survived, and many were already flowering. Of course there is mud everywhere, and here and there a spillage of the huge, heavy sugar beet that have fallen off a lorry bound for the sugar factory at Bury St Edmunds. Whenever I see these monstrosities I can't help thinking of Hardy's Tess digging them up and loading them on a cart by hand in the coldest, most hostile month of the year. No heavy-duty rubber gloves, or sheepskin ones either. I don't know how she bore the intense chill.

Mud had incensed the nice lady in Esme's House in Fram when I popped in for paint yesterday. It's a smart interior designers, and she had just returned from seeing a client, hugely embarrassed about the state of her car outside their immaculate house. "I'd just washed it and it was plastered again," she moaned. I commiserated. It shocked us when we first moved to Suffolk. Like her, we built a large porch for muddy shoes and boots, but this beautiful addition to the house got messy too, and so we built a wooden boot house beside the porch. "That's what I want!" she cried. "But with three kids it wouldn't be enough. We need a covered walkway from the car to the porch, boots exchanged for slippers at the far end! I dream about this!" I laughed, remembering how strongly I used to feel the same. Now I have a series of strong plastic bags in the cupboard beside the back door, and all muddy footwear is immediately packed out of sight. Easy to do when you live alone.

I had a sudden surge of joie de vivre - no other way of describing it - when I walked in the light mizzle along the lane. It came from nowhere, a familiar friend. I used to think that these eruptions of intense happiness, inspired by music perhaps, or a smell, or something lovely, were because I was with the person I loved. But they were entirely from me, and so they remain. Had I realised this sooner I might have gone my own way years ago. Still, never too late.