I have finished my picture of the-family-as-mice.
Now I want to do the rest of us as mice as well, but have run into difficulties because I have run out of camper van.
There is not enough space left on it to paint four little mice.
I can hardly believe it, a massive six-berth camper van and it is so covered in elaborate doodles that there is no room left.
I have almost finished it now, another couple of days will see the outside complete, unless I can find a mouse-space, in which case it will take a bit longer.
We have been doing things to the camper can all day, having got up early and skipped our start-of-day coffee in order to dash over to the farm. Once we got there of course we were so desperate for coffee that we had to have a restorative sit down until we had completely drained the flask, including the chewy bits at the bottom. I had some headache tablets as well, because of the wine last night.
Once we had recovered our spirits it was a nice day. The sun was shining, and although it wasn’t exactly warm, when my coat came unfastened I didn’t fasten it up. I did keep my scarf on, but I am pleased to say that I was hardly chilly at all, so maybe the heatwave predicted in the Daily Express is upon us, how splendid to know that we can rely on our magnificent tabloids to keep us well-informed about things.
Mark carried on faffing about with the electrics. Over the last year or so he has completely rewired the van, and now he is putting in little switches and circuit breakers and fuses and things to swap between 12 volt and 240 volt power.
I am not sure why he needs to do this but know that he does, it is all to do with the solar charger and lithium battery wall. It involves a great deal of muttering around the screwdriver that he has got between his clenched teeth, and the sort of concentration where he does not think it is funny if I tickle his ears whilst he has got his hands full. There seem to be dozens of wires, but now at long last they are all slowly disappearing into connectors and being tidied away into the cupboard.
Every now and again he says mysterious things like ‘we’re at nine amps now’. This means nothing whatsoever to me, but if I say something like: ‘goodness me, already?’ or a similar non-committal phrase then he doesn’t seem to notice that I have got no idea at all what he is talking about.
I think I must have learned in school what an amp is, although I have long since forgotten, and once I did an entire house rewire, with the help of the Reader’s Digest Complete Book of DIY. If you follow the instructions really carefully it isn’t difficult, and in the olden days you used to be allowed to have a go at this sort of thing yourself, because it was before anybody invented Health and Safety. All the same I still don’t have the first idea what he is talking about, and am jolly glad I am married, it would be ghastly to have to try and work it all out for myself.
In the end we had to stop, because we had promised ourselves that we would go to work, which is where we are now. So far I have made enough to put some fuel in my car and put back the fiver I borrowed out of my cash box in an emergency yesterday. It might not be worth working in the middle of the week after all, because that does not add up to very much money, and it is nearly time to go home.
I am going to occupy the last hour looking at pictures of the van and considering whether or not there may be a mouse-sized space anywhere.
See you tomorrow.
