It is still, and a little cooler after the rain.
The sun has been out, and the world is fresh-scented and light again.
Our garden is fragrant and warm, and the blossom in the Library Gardens is filling the air with perfume. It could not be more beautiful.
Our next door neighbour has given us an armful of flowers, because Mark popped round this morning to fix his broken door handle for him. I have put them in jugs and spread them all over the house. There is a tiny warm breeze drifting in through the open windows. It is a good place to be.
I jolly well hope the children are appreciating it, because we are not there any more, of course, we are at work.
I don’t mind this, because I have got a good history book about Henry VIII, and it is pleasant to be here as well. There are a lot of tired-looking pink people wandering about, probably feeling rather glad to be going home tomorrow.
In fact it has been another very quiet holiday, so much so that some of the hotels still have empty rooms. This is astonishing for the Lake District, and we are all beginning to feel a bit uneasy. Mark thinks that trade might pick up a bit after the election, and that people might be staying at home because they don’t like uncertain times. I hope that he is right, because if it doesn’t then we have got some difficult days ahead.
We sat in the garden this afternoon and contemplated our fortunes. This activity was made pleasanter by a couple of glasses of water with slices of cucumber and lemon and some fresh-picked mint leaves.
We have been a bit worried about the slow start to the tourist season this year, we have not been doing very well yet. We considered this for a while, and then thought that life would soon start to become very much better once the camper van was restored to health.
For ten years now it has been our refuge and our retreat in all times of trouble, and we have missed it dreadfully this year. It is almost forty years old, and we have scraped out every last greasy smear of rot and every crumbling sliver of rust. We have taken out the floor and the walls, the wheels and the axles, the engine and the cab. We have rebuilt the bedrooms and the kitchen, the cupboards and the roof. We have rewired and replumbed, and we have rebuilt the whole front end. It was weary and decayed: and it is becoming beautiful and bright.
Nursing it back to health has cost us an awful lot, mostly in terms of a sinkhole full of cash, but also in time and effort. We have been so preoccupied with it that all sorts of other things have not been cared for as lovingly they should have been.
The end is in sight now, and it will make life easier in so many ways. We will have more time for nursing our poor limping taxis and digging the allotment.
We were cheered by that thought, and resolved to put our shoulders back to the taxi-plough and keep on earning whatever we can. In a few months we will have more time to do other things: and we won’t need to be spending money on brake cables and prop shafts. The summer will be here and people will be getting in taxis.
I am going to stop here, because we have just reached pub-emptying time, and I am hoping to make our fortune.
Good things always happen to us in the end.
The picture is the side of the camper van with the new doors cut in it for the water heaters and the loo. They still need painting. Good things really are happening. Cutting and bracing and fixing those has been a huge job, and now it is done.
Not long now.
