It has been another joyously sunny day.
This one hasn’t been a holiday, though.
We have been busy today.
Mark went up to the farm to try and patch the camper van up a bit. It is getting a bit elderly now, and always needs more repairs than we ever have time to do. At the moment we have got the most enormous list of things we would like to do to it, we don’t have time for half of it and can’t afford half of the rest.
His current project is to rebuild the front corner, which in fact I knocked off it when a short wall leapt out at me rather unexpectedly a couple of years ago. My brother did an emergency repair to it with a couple of sheets of board which have been there ever since, and we have decided that in view of our approaching holiday it is time that something more aesthetically pleasing was attempted.
This should not prove too difficult, since it is hard to come up with a less aesthetically pleasing arrangement than the current one, which consists of several sheets of rotting board with a delivery note scrawled on them in indelible marker. I am very pleased that we are doing something about it, because I feel vaguely guilty every time I look at it. Also the last time we went to France and tried to park it in an hotel car park the doorman was superbly snooty in a Parisian sort of way, and managed to imply through his impeccable cool politeness that he thought that they might just valet park it at the local dechetterie for us.
So Mark and the dogs went off to the farm, and I stayed at home to try and get our lives back on to a sensible track after a couple of days of bohemian living.
This turned out to be not at all easy, largely because the vaguely mellow and contented feeling turned out to be not at all easy to shift. In order to fill a day with a decent catalogue of sensible achievements such as a fridge full of edible things and some comparison quotes for taxi insurance and a chest of drawers full of clean clothes, my overall requirement is for some anxious and determined feelings in order to drive me into action.
It proved impossible to dredge these up, and I realised after about half an hour that all I had done of any consequence was to pick some flowers to rearrange for the bathroom and the bedrooms, and hum a cheerful little tune.
I felt just a bit guilty about letting the side down in such a reprehensible manner, and in the end had to make a really determined effort to get my act together. I didn’t really manage it, either, and when Mark came home in the late afternoon he discovered me flapping about despairingly in the middle of a huge pile of washing up and trimmed-off flower leaves.
He helpfully washed up and brought the washing in from the line, and when I eventually emerged from my little domestic crisis it turned out that I had managed to do all sorts of things.
I had made biscuits, and stuffed some potatoes with bacon and cheese, and cooked some spiced chicken for work. Once Mark had taken over the tidying up things got a lot easier, and I made sandwiches and a flask of tea to take to work, and we took the dogs for a last sunshine-meander around the Library Gardens before we had got to go to work.
Work was nice as well. We sat on the taxi rank and drank beautifully fragrant steamy Earl Grey tea from our flask and thought how lovely the world is. Mark showed me the photographs of the work he has done to the camper van and thought that he did not at all mind that I was feeling too peaceful and happy to achieve very much.
I was pleased that I had achieved something, because Number Two Daughter comes home on Monday, and it will be nice to have some food we can offer her.
It will be lovely to have the camper van mended again.
It has been quite a busy day in the end.
