This arrived this morning.
Dear Mrs Ibbetson,
Thank you for your e-mail concerning the apparent juxtaposition between licensing fees and the current weather systems that are affecting northern Europe. Whilst it is true to say that one side of the equation can have an effect on the other, it is not necessarily true contrariwise.
Notwithstanding this annoying paradox, I have taken the opportunity to obtain the best, long term weather forecast of UK weather in summer 2017. The eternally accurate Daily Express (25 May 2017) gleefully informs us there will be a 100 DAY HEATWAVE: UK set for SIZZLING HOT summer as Spanish Plume sparks weather scorcher.
If that is the case, I imagine that visitor numbers will soar and with it, the need for taxi rides too. This will undoubtedly increase your income to unimagined levels and render the recent increases in fees to be utterly insignificant.
NB: It is necessary for an area called ‘The Lake District’ to enjoy the odd deluge of monsoon like proportions, to ensure the lakes, tarns, meres and waters are adequately supplied and topped up. Failure to do so would render the area to be nothing more than ‘The Valley District’, which would probably be a lot less romantic.
Yours sincerely,
Tony Houlihan | Licensing Officer
South Lakeland District Council, South Lakeland House, Lowther Street, Kendal, Cumbria LA9 4DQ.
Dear Mr. Houlihan,
Thank you for your prompt response.
I am pleased to hear your optimism in relation to this subject, and note that I share your confidence in the ever-reliable Daily Mail.
Indeed, I have noticed some small improvement today, and wonder if this might be due to your increased efforts to secure a better meteorological outcome for the summer. If this is the case, then please accept my grateful thanks.
Keep up the good work.
Yours sincerely
Sarah Ibbetson
Mark went to a funeral this morning.
I did not go with him, because of having never actually met the chap in question, and not wishing to be suspected of turning up simply to join in the free lunch. In any case, the chap had been popular, and predictably, the church was so full that the doors had to be left open so that people standing outside could still hear.
Instead I offered my support by hauling a black suit out of the loft and hunting out his black tie.
When Mark put the suit on it was clear that something had happened to it since the last time he wore it. It seemed to have become two sizes too big and unrecognisably shapeless.
This did not please Mark, who has a small but pleasing collection of tidy, well-cut suits, all kept carefully cleaned and bagged and hung in the loft. In the end we thought that perhaps it was an old one left over from some event in his distant pre-marital youth.
There wasn’t time to disturb the lodger and change it, so he wore it anyway, and presumably blended in nicely with the rest of the congregation. This was made up almost entirely of farmers, who are not noted for their extravagant sartorial investments.
The deceased chap concerned was a relative of some sort, as indeed half of Cumbria seems to be related to Mark’s family in one way or another, and terribly he was only forty six. Wonderfully, the family brought him to the church on the farm trailer, towed behind the tractor, and took him away in the same way afterwards, to be buried in one of his own fields.
Mark went with his mother, who has come up from Wales for the purpose, and once the dreadful part was over, actually they had quite a nice time. There were dozens of old acquaintances there, cousins and aunts and neighbours, friends from Mark’s hot air ballooning days, and even an ex-girlfriend, so with hindsight perhaps it was a good thing about the suit.
I stayed at home and sewed covers for the windows of the camper van cab. These are made of a combination of dog-wee corduroy and an old sheet of quilting backed with silver stuff, and I had a very difficult time because of the two side windows being opposite sorts of shapes, My spatial awareness is beyond rubbish, and even with my tongue sticking out I still had to throw one away and start again.
I was pleased to see Mark home, even with a far more pronounced Cumbrian accent than he usually has. He put the suit in a bag to go to the charity shop, and we got ready for work.
The weather has improved a bit today, after my letter to the council, it has hardly rained very much at all.
If everybody wrote to them just think what we could achieve.
I haven’t taken a picture, so I added a beautiful blue-sky one of the camper van. It was taken several weeks ago, as I am sure you have worked out.
