The Pleasing Day

Today had a refreshing sense of normality to it, which so many of them don’t nowadays. I rose, exercised, showered, ate lunch, went shopping. Then I spent several hours spraying weed killer about the property— I’ve been overrun with something called “London rocket,” which is a kind of mustardlike plant with a yellow flower, not native to the area but spreading like, well, weeds.

After that I cooked up a week’s worth of badaami murgh— which is a chicken dish featuring a kind of tomato-ginger-onion-garlic sauce that would be like red spaghetti sauce, if red spaghetti sauce were invented by someone from Jaipur. (I must try it on pasta.)

Having spent the whole day on my feet, I then put my feet up in the hot tub for a while, and now I’m refreshed and nourished and ready for a night’s hard writing.

A nearly perfect day, if one in a minor key. Exercise, the outdoors, a good meal, a good bathe, and readiness for the day’s usual combat with the English language. What more could a person want? (Other than sex, I suppose.)