The picture at the top is the washing, hung out helpfully by Oliver whilst we were at the farm.
In fact, amongst other things, it is our duvet cover and sheet, drying ready for tonight.
It turned out that he had not grasped the sequence in which laundry is usually washed, dried and then folded, as you may be able to tell.
Clearly I have given inadequate instruction on some of the finer details of housewifery, but nevertheless I was very impressed. A further element to the problem seems to be that he can’t actually reach the washing line, which I can accept might be something of a disadvantage.
I am so pleased to have such a helpful offspring that I have suggested that he has a go at other useful tasks, cleaning the bathroom, for instance, but he is not terribly keen. This is unfortunate, because it means that the entire household, including me, has decided not to enjoy housework.
This doesn’t matter very much at the moment, because it is summer, and we don’t make quite so much mess. There is no stove sending dust wafting out into the house, and the windows are all open dispersing the gentle scents of dog outside into the road.
Also the new self-propelling hoover helps. It usually manages to get quite a bit of dust picked up before it falls down the stairs or gets stuck behind the loo, little propellor brushes whirring frantically in efforts to free itself.
We did not actually do any housework today, beyond the usual morning jobs of child-feeding and washing up, and obviously we put the washing into the machine. Oliver preferred to stay at home, so we left him behind and buzzed off to continue with the endless labour of camper van restoration, about which I am sure you have already heard more than enough.
Whilst we were busy happily tootling we were disturbed by a strange buzzing sound outside. At first we thought that it must be a swarm of bees somewhere, and then we realised that it is really getting far too late in the year for that. We were curious then, so we went outside and looked.
Mark’s sister was having the house photographed for sale. There was a peculiar airborne contraption, rather like a giant insect, circling around the farm, with a round camera lens in its nose.
It was a drone. I have never seen one before.
I am embarrassed to tell you that I was thoroughly frightened.
Of course I was perfectly well aware that no threat whatsoever is posed by flying cameras belonging to estate agents, but it was the insidious, creeping horror of it that seemed so dreadful.
It turned its nasty mechanical face in our direction and looked down at us from the air.
It flew a little way in our direction, and looked through the window in the side of the shed. By ‘window’, obviously I mean ‘hole’, but window sounds better.
I had to fight the impulse to crawl under the camper van and hide.
I knew it wasn’t looking at us, because Mark and I are not beautiful things to include in an estate agent’s sales catalogue. Probably it was very much wishing that we would clear off out of its lovely landscape vista.
All the same, it seemed truly horrible, being watched and considered by a remote eye hovering above us.
Mark said that I should not worry, if it turned out to be malicious in its intent then he could always shoot it down, but if I didn’t mind he would prefer not to just at the moment, because of upsetting his sister a bit more than strictly necessary.
Obviously Mark did not shoot it down, and I sloped off to do some painting behind the camper van out of its line of vision, feeling like the children in the Jurassic Park kitchen before the all-American hero appears to rescue them from their terrible peril.
I was very glad when it disappeared.
We went home and rearranged the washing. Then we went off to work, where we have just spent an entertaining midnight hour watching the men from the Chinese restaurant across the road doing dodgy things to the air vents, leaning across on one leg from an extremely wobbly ladder. I think maybe they have not yet invented Health and Safety in China.
They came over the road then to see if we could persuade Lucy to come and work for a couple of hours after she had finished her other work, although I don’t hold out much hope, maybe we could send Oliver instead.
Oliver is starting to get quite domesticated after all.
