You will be surprised to hear that we have had a truly happy day.
Not a making-the-best-of-it sort of day, but a happy one. Contented and sunny and glad with our world.
We both woke up feeling unravelled with anxiety at about six this morning. For us this is like a person with normal sleeping hours getting up at three in the morning, just for a change.
We sat in bed drinking coffee and thinking about things.
Mark said that really it was a release. We were free, not bound into other people’s plans and lives any more.
We thought really that this would be better. It is always happier to be able to get on with our own thing without worrying about upsetting anybody else.
There is a piece of land on the other side of the farm that Mark’s sister does not own. Mark thought perhaps he would be able to buy this.
It is hidden away and has a bit of a stream on it, and we could do anything that we liked without disturbing anybody. Mark wants to build little water wheels anyway, because he knows how to generate power like this.
He thought that he would like to build a much smaller shed, out of straw bales, because they are warm. Obviously they will not sing the way his own shed does, but still, we are not getting any younger and even though it is the summer I am still wearing my fur boots when we are working at the farm. Warm would probably be a good idea.
We thought about it for ages, and had lots of good ideas for things we would like to do. When we got up we felt very much happier. It was a good thing that it was a nice day, because that helped a lot. In my imaginary pictures of a new straw bale shed by a little stream, the sun was shining in every single one of them.
When we were dressed the world was so warm and inviting that we wandered out into the sun in the front garden and pottered around for a while weeding the flower beds. Both gardens have turned into miniature versions of Sleeping Beauty’s hedge, mostly because of all of the muck we have put on them. They have grown and grown and grown, and we can hardly get in through the back gate any more.
An old man came and talked to us whilst we were busy. He told us all about his time in the army. He said that he still does twenty sit ups and press ups every morning even though he is ninety six. He looked as though he probably did, we were very impressed. Maybe by the time I am ninety six I will be able to do a press up.
Lucy was at work, so Oliver thought that he would like to come with us to the farm, because it would be a nice thing to do in the lovely sunshine.
We did not see Mark’s sister all day.
We had a bonfire and burned lots of rubbish. We seemed to have collected lots of rags which have been used for wiping things like paintbrushes and oil. There were dozens of empty cardboard boxes, and sticks that had been used to stir paint. We had one shocking misfortune when somehow an aerosol can must have been mixed up in something, and there was a very exciting explosion, but nobody was hurt and no damage done, so that was all right.
Oliver helped with the bonfire and then practised driving in his car, he has been doing reversing around corners. Then he got out his gun and shot things, and afterwards he helped Mark to do something to the underneath of the camper van.
Then at the very end of the day the exciting thing happened.
Mark put the hydraulic jacks underneath the camper to lift it up just a little bit higher, and gently eased it off its blocks.
When he lowered it down it stood on its own wheels for the first time in a year and a half.
It has got wheels and brakes and an engine.
He drove it out of the workshop, and we all had a little celebratory trip along the drive and back again. You can see it in the picture at the top.
We were very happy and excited indeed.
It was an odd thing, somehow when we got it outside it seemed really very small. It has been a massive thing in our lives for years. It has been really tall, because of being lifted on blocks, and really big, because of occupying our whole lives. Then when we drove it outside in the sunshine underneath the fells, suddenly we could see that it was just a little truck really, and not at all a great overwhelming project that we could hardly see the top of.
It was just a little van.
It isn’t finished yet.
The picture below illustrates one important omission that needs to be rectified.
There is still a lot to do.
