Mark has spent the day at the farm trying to nail the camper van back together.
I have phoned him hopefully several times for progress reports, but depressingly it is beginning to look as though we might not manage to go anywhere in it this weekend.
I think I may have mentioned that we thought that we might go to York on Sunday, which is the day before Lucy is due to return. We thought that we might stay overnight and look around York a bit, and then collect her from school on Monday lunchtime and come home, in time to go to work on Monday night.
However, the key element of this plan is of course being able to take our own personalised budget accommodation along with us, which may not happen if it is sitting sadly in a brown rusty heap in the shed at the farm.
I am sad about this, because I would have liked a break very much, although I suppose that if he has not managed to finish it then staying at home is a better option than going off on a long journey in a van made largely out of rust with crucial engine components tied in with bits of string in order to prevent them falling out on to the roadside as we travel.
Mark has explained to me in detail what the problem is. The difficulty is that since the word ‘bulkhead’ means nothing whatsoever to me I am still no wiser; and he keeps saying things like ‘just below the bulkhead’ in a way that indicates I ought to reply: “goodness me, that’s pretty serious, how clever and manly you are for mending it like that.”
Of course I have said that anyway, but this was because he always works harder when I am being encouraging. If I say things like, “Oh, for goodness’ sake, is that all? A real man would have fixed that ages ago, pull yourself together,” then he becomes sad and discouraged and has to go and play at shooting zombies on the Playstation with Oliver until he feels better.
Anyway, the point is that I regret to say to the mechanically minded or curious that if you want to know why our camper van is lying in the shed at the farm in a thousand bits you will have to ask him, because I really haven’t got the least idea.
All I know is that he has discovered a lot of rust and a large hole which has been causing a nasty draught into the cab if we park somewhere windy, and he is busy lying in a muddy shed sticking bits of tin to it with his welder and being pessimistic.
He is only pessimistic because he wanted to go and play on the allotment today and not take the camper van to bits again. It is getting to the age when he spends as much time underneath it as he does driving it. A couple of years ago he peeled all of one side out and rebuilt it, and he thinks that next year he will probably do the other side, but not this summer, because we want to have a holiday.
This weekend was not intended to be our holiday, which as you know will take place in Number One Daughter’s garden on the army camp in Purbright later on in the year, but a short and refreshing break intended to provide an opportunity for milling around spending the mortgage money in the shops in York and waking up feeling untroubled and free in a layby at the side of a road somewhere. I don’t suppose it was a major adventure really, but we like being in the camper van very much indeed. I always feel as though a weight has lifted off my shoulders when we get in it.
We keep it packed with the nicest things we can manage, lovely soap and our favourite wine and soft jerseys for evenings at the seaside. I like to keep it absolutely ready, in case the world ends and we have to run away whilst heroes charge around Windermere rescuing little girls from the tsunami on the lake and the Lake Cruises steamer gets washed on to the roof of the Belsfield hotel: in which case we will hurriedly fill the fridge and pack clean underwear into the drawers, and belt off to safety at thirty five miles an hour along the Kendal bypass.
I am not expecting the world to end and so it would have been nice to have a holiday.
I suppose we could always go and shift stones on the allotment instead.
