14:30 · the hot part
Boingy goes for the last lantern in the nettles, arrives at the bottom of the bank in a sitting position, and lies there a good while feeling flat while the day carries on above. Pouty sits at the top keeping company from a safe height. Then Boingy says "I can try again", bounces three times, and comes back up the solid way.
3 fluffs tell this minute. None of them saw the same one.
There was one lantern left in the nettles, further out than the others, on the bit of bank that goes over.
"I'll get it," I said.
And I did, eventually. What happened first was very fast and involved a great deal of bank.
I arrived at the bottom in a sitting position with nettles up both arms and the wind entirely gone out of me.
At about half past two I was up near the bank when Boingy went over the edge.
Fast. Very fast. Arrived at the bottom in a sitting position with nettles up both arms and no wind left at all.
"Oh no," I said, over the edge, and I meant it.
And then I sat down at the top and kept company from a safe height, which is the only sort of help I had to offer, since I was not going down there.
Boingy came past at some point covered in nettle stings, having gone down the bank the fast way, and said something encouraging from a lying-down position, which I appreciated more than I let on.
I got the last loop out at half past two. Forty feet of good rope, in one piece, coiled properly.
And nobody made a fuss, because by then everybody had forgotten it had ever been a knot. That is the usual reward for that sort of afternoon and I am used to it and it did not bother me at all.
What I noticed, sitting on the crate afterwards with a coil of rope and nothing to do, was that the hour had been quiet. Nobody standing over me. Nobody asking how it was going every four minutes, or making an encouraging face, or — worst of all — offering to have a turn.
