It’s icumen in

I have collected Oliver.

It is really truly summer.

I went across for him this morning and we shared a joyful holiday-stretching-out-into-eternity feeling all the way home.

I don’t know why I should feel like this as I am not on holiday at all, and actually probably I ought to be working a lot harder than I do all of the rest of the year because of having lots of tourists visiting with cash to spend. Also we can’t sit about feeling summery and drinking pink champagne in the garden, because we have got to really get on with the camper van now because we are going to need it soon if we are going to arrange our planned summer holiday of four days in Blackpool.

I am looking forward to this like you wouldn’t believe, it seems quite possible now that summer has really come at last. All we have got to do is mend the camper van and we will be off. We have all talked about it endlessly, we are going to go to Jungle Jim’s and the ice rink and cycle up the promenade and eat doughnuts. I am not sure the holiday will exactly be improved by the inevitable presence of ten dogs in the newly-restored-and-lavender-painted camper van, though, we will have to put some newspaper down.

Mark took the camper van window across to the window mender in Kendal today. We had telephoned a company we found online who specialise in camper van windows, and they said that there was absolutely no chance whatsoever because of the van being a prehistoric old ruin and if they could possibly find somebody else to do it it would probably cost more than the van was worth.

The man in Kendal who usually does glass cutting and things for us said that they would put a piece of toughened laminate in and it would cost thirty quid and could be double glazed if we like: which was an ace result. We can pick it up on Thursday.

Mark is mending the hole in the floor at the moment. I have had to stay at home because of Oliver being here and because of needing to do some girl things like washing and cooking and sewing. I have cooked lots of things like sausages and chicken which we can just eat over the weekend, ironed a pile of school uniform almost as big as me, burned a hole in Lucy’s quilt cover and had to order a new one; and made a curtain. I am about to make another curtain to hang across Lucy’s bunk but thought I would stop for a minute to write to you.

Of course Oliver brought home another colossal stack of washing, I have no idea at all how school manages to get grass stains out of cricket whites, no matter how many Internet-inspired bright ideas I have tried out his cricket whites stay resolutely greenly splodged, although fortunately it is another two terms before I need to worry about cricket again. It is my last year of washing Lucy’s uniform for ever and ever, once she hits sixth form they are allowed to wear their own clothes. It was a peculiar thought whilst standing patiently ironing pleats into kilts this afternoon: I will only iron those skirts another handful of times before they are gone for ever.

With the end of term came an e-mail from  Oliver’s school telling me that they have had some exciting new ideas for sports kit and so they are going to have a whole new kit, which will cost me £127.35 and is a new concept in sportswear. We have got to buy it this summer and sew labels and hanging hooks in it all before September. I am sure you can imagine my happiness at that thought, how pleased I am that Oliver will look like a modern concept when he is busy scrum-halfing on the Year Three Rugby D Team, or whatever it is. I wasn’t doing anything else anyway.

I have attached some more puppy photographs for the benefit of my cousin-in-law who thought she would like to see some more. I have considered suggesting lending them to her on a sort of sample basis for four days in August. They are not very good photographs because the tiresome things won’t stay still.