It appeared this morning that we had got some unspent money, a situation which could not be allowed to continue: so when Mark went over to the camper van I went off to Barrow.
I wanted some fabric from the man on the market for lining curtains.
I love Barrow. In the past when we have been in possession of a complete camper van and when the children were younger and less easily bored, we used to head over there whenever we got some spare time and park next to the beach. We had some absolutely ace times, wandering along the beach and charging down the sand dunes, and climbing on the rocks and generally ambling about feeling happy. There are natterjack toads in some smelly ponds, and you can fly kites and paddle in the icy and probably radioactive sea, and we went there for years and years.
We stopped going when the children became more sophisticated and preferred Blackpool, and also the man in charge of the National Trust got a bee in his bonnet about people camping there, because of course lots of people did it, mostly fishermen: and he put a barrier on the car park so that vans couldn’t get in. Mark thought he might unscrew it and chuck it in the sea, but we didn’t really go there any more anyway, so he didn’t.
All the same, I still love Barrow: it was ace to go down there and hear the seagulls calling to one another, and smell the sea so close by, although the tide was out.
I wandered happily around the market hall for ages, looking at pet stalls and posters advertising the approaching visit of Sandra the Psychic, and smelling the fish stalls and the vegetables. There were lots of people sitting contentedly at the little cafe, drinking milky tea and eating sticky looking buns, and it is one of those glorious places where dogs are still allowed, so almost everybody had one. There were china ornaments and feather boas and lots and lots of fabric stalls, and a wool shop and a haberdashery, people in Barrow must do more making things than people in Windermere.
I bought my curtain lining, and some other things that we needed, and left reluctantly. I would have liked to wander around for a bit longer, but couldn’t think of a single other thing that I wanted to purchase, and so made my way back to the farm, where Mark was busy fixing the hole in the floor.
I told him all about it, and then got on with my job for the day, which was the horrible, horrible job of replacing the fibre glass insulation in the roof.
Anybody who has ever had anything to do with this stuff knows that it is dreadful in the extreme, and I cut it and poked it between the rafters whilst it rained down its dreadful prickly dust all over me. I coughed and sneezed and rubbed my streaming eyes until I looked like an England football supporter after an encounter with the French police: but in the end it was done.
Mark cut the plywood and we had a slightly testing time trying to stick it to the ceiling. You can see him on the picture. He is on the bunk over the top of the cab, where Oliver sleeps. We slept there when we were younger but I have got to keep getting up for a wee these days and climbing down the ladder in the middle of the night, especially after a glass of lovely French red before bedtime, has become too tiresome to be contemplated.
I cut the day short and sloped off home for an early shower, and stood under the jet and scrubbed until most of the prickles had been soaped away, leaving me with a scarlet face but a huge sense of relief.
We are starting to make a difference to it. We might be getting somewhere by the start of the summer holidays.
It is really exciting.
