Two glass mistake

Despite resolutions to do better we took advantage of the self-governing freedom we have created in our lives to decide that we just couldn’t be bothered to go to work tonight: so we didn’t.

This is a very lovely state of affairs, I can’t even begin to imagine living the sort of life where you have got to apply in advance for time off and then somebody might say no. It is splendid to be randomly idle as the spirit moves us.

We weren’t really so much idle as exhausted. We have been doing things to the camper van all day.

We got out of bed this morning to discover that either we had got burglars on the third floor or Number Two Daughter had managed to make it home. Eventually she staggered down the stairs groaning and complaining of a terrible hangover: it turned out that in the end her friend’s husband, possibly concerned about their two toddlers being abandoned and motherless, had driven very crossly all the way to Manchester in the middle of the night to rescue them. I thought this was extraordinarily noble of him. You will notice that I made no such offer. Her friend had to go to work this morning. I am very glad of self-governing freedom.

We got up early, by which I mean before lunchtime, and did some domestic things and then set off to the farm for ten hours labouring on the camper van. We took all of the dogs with us and various other things that had been cluttering up the house, such as all of our camper van bedding, and some inexplicable plastic ducting that Mark had been given by a builder in the village which he thought would be useful.

It was ace to have such a long and uninterrupted time to do things to it. I took the window out of the front above the cab. Actually that is not true. I took the screws out and hacked through what I could manage of the silicone. Actually Mark took it out in the end: but I had a long and scary adventure balancing on a precarious ladder first. It is a very long way up.

I didn’t fall off the ladder although I did hacksaw my finger and fall through a hole in the floor. There wasn’t a hole in the floor when first I stood there, that happened a split second later. I was most surprised and somewhat sorry for myself. To his credit, Mark only laughed after he had checked that I wasn’t dead, which took me a few minutes to establish for absolutely certain.

We collected Lucy on our way home to discover Number Two Daughter still incapacitated when we arrived. We had a lovely evening meal of cheese and crackers together, washed down with some splendid Beaujolais, hence the two glass mistake, because once again I am trying to write this through an ill-advised inebriated haze.

Whilst we drank wine the girls squabbled about which puppy they would like to keep.

This is becoming something of an anxiety as they are both pleading hard for different ones, and I don’t doubt Oliver will fall in love with a different one again. This will leave us with five dogs, which will be very tiresome indeed once they have all buzzed off to their respective employment and educational establishments at the end of the summer.

Mark says I will have to put my foot down, although I don’t see why I should have to: maybe he could put his foot down instead.

It is alarming to think that if we don’t we will finish up overrun with dogs.