We have had such a busy day.
I got in my taxi tonight and realised I was achingly, exhaustedly tired.
It seems to have flown past in a haze of doing things. We cleaned and cooked things this morning before we went to the farm, cleaned and cooked a bit more when we got back tonight. Then we came to work.
In between we did things to the camper van.
Mark thought he might be at the stage of mechanicalness where he could bleed the brakes. This is one of the few mechanical tasks where I can actually help. so I did.
My job was to put my foot on the brake pedal and then take it off again.
There is still no driver’s seat.
It is surprisingly difficult to wag a brake pedal about when you are lying on the floor. Also there was a technical difficulty with something called a bias valve, which meant that I had to wag it about a very great deal.
I lay on the floor of the camper wagging my legs about whilst Mark bobbed about underneath the van, shouting: “Up! Down! Up! Down! Slowly…slowly…now pump it…” like the director of the sort of film that Glenn the video hire man once told us that he kept in a box underneath the front seat of his van for people who asked for them. I was terribly curious about these, never having watched one, but not curious enough to spend a fiver and endure Glenn’s knowing smirks whilst he handed it over.
In the end I got tired of clinging to the bottom of the steering wheel pumping the brake pedal up and down, and set up a deck chair in the cab, which worked better, and also stopped the dogs from bouncing all over me trying to lick my ears.
In the end Mark decided that something was not working as it should do, and I was allowed to stop, which was something of a relief. I don’t know what the something is, but made lame jokes to the children later about broken brakes anyway.
The children came to join us for a while before we went out to work, Lucy had had a weary day, having been working with ladies who talked all the time. She has inherited my lack of ability to do small talk, and couples that with a ruthless conviction that people should be encouraged to think rationally about life.
She silenced her colleagues at work by explaining to them exactly why, biologically, one of them always smelled sweet peas when she thought about her dead grandmother. It was not a visiting spirit, she explained, but related to a sensory association caused by a shared membrane in the brain, I forget the exact details. Actually, on re-reading this I realise that I have forgotten the broad details as well and could easily be making it up.
I am not sure how far this trait will be useful to a career in floristry. It might be rather more profitable to encourage people to think of their Departed Loved Ones as being ever present and needing to be appeased with regular floral tributes. I would do this, although since I don’t have an ‘O’ Level in science anyway, I am not really in much of a position to do anything else.
The top picture is the cab of the camper van, complete with new dashboard, door cards and ceiling.
I have partly solved the door problem by painting a blacksmith’s shop on Mark’s door, which he thought he would like. It is below. I am still considering whether or not to include Blackpool Tower somewhere, which has been helpfully suggested. I suspect that if I do people will think we are some sort of travelling circus and imagine that we are going to get out and do tricks.
The forge isn’t anywhere near finished yet, only blocked out, it needs lots of tools, and bellows, and an anvil, and the fire is too big and needs making smaller. I am going to paint a sign hanging from the door handle, and other details: but you get the idea.
Talk to you tomorrow.
