I have lost track of the days.
When I woke up this morning it was a surprise to discover during our first eyelid-steaming coffee that it was Friday.
A few moments’ thought on the subject of Friday brought a further surprise in the shape of a recollection that we were expecting visitors.
Ritalin Boy has been staying with his Other Grandma, who dealt with the problem of having a tiresome sticky riot in her house by sweeping him and his Identical Twin Cousin onto an aeroplane to Spain and dumping them in a swimming pool for a week.
This sounds magnificent and I had to work hard to be my Best Self and not feel a small twinge of sunshine-deprived envy. The Lake District is beautiful but the weather has been unspeakably rubbish this summer.
We tidied up and purchased ice lollies in some haste, and had only just put them away in the freezer when there was a cheerful pounding on the back door.
“‘Lo Granny,” said Ritalin Boy.
He stayed in the kitchen for long enough to have a graze on his knee inspected and to unwrap an ice lolly. Then he sprinted past us at high speed to Oliver’s room, where he remained for the next hour, entranced by the technological wizardry he discovered up there.
Ritalin Boy’s Other Grandma looked sleek and suntanned. She is going off to Spain again next week by way of recovering from a fortnight of childcare, after which she has planned a cruise around the Caribbean.
I reminded myself very hard indeed that I am very happy with my life and that lovely things happen to me all the time.
It is good to remember this.
Ritalin Boy appeared briefly to request another ice lolly, after which it was time for him to go.
“I hided all your treasures, Granny,” he said cheerily on his way out.
I still haven’t found most of the contents of my dressing table, which will be a nuisance if I need to make myself look middle class for any purpose.
When they had gone we consoled ourselves with the reflection that once the camper van is ready we will go down to the balmy south and visit Number One Daughter.
Even if it was fully operational we could not go at the moment, because Number One Daughter has got a temporary posting out to Cyprus for a couple of weeks, and Number One Son-In-Law is loafing about in hospital in Aberdeen, having been rendered temporarily disabled by an infected splinter.
He acquired this on an oil rig, where they are extremely cautious about members of staff becoming indisposed, and so when his splinter became sore they flew him off and dumped him in hospital. He is still getting paid and so doesn’t mind very much, although I think on balance Number One Daughter has got the best of the bargain, she told me tonight on the telephone that it is very hot indeed in Cyprus.
It is raining in the Lake District.
Once we had said our goodbyes to Ritalin Boy we rushed over to the farm, where I hung the kitchen curtain and Mark started fitting the filler hose for the LPG tank. Shortly after our arrival we were visited by our lodger and a pleasingly enthusiastic Irish friend, so of course we had to stop doing things and give them a little tour of our efforts.
By the time we had done basking in their kindly admiration it had got far too late for us to make any great headway with mattress surgery, so we have decided to leave that for another day. A mattress, of course, is not strictly necessary to operations in quite the same way that water and gas and electric are.
We finished the things we were doing and had to go and get ready for work, because the weekend is looming large again.
They do seem to come around remarkably quickly.
The picture shows Mark drilling the hole for the LPG filler. He has had to drill through my picture. He has made a little door to go over the hole. I will have to paint the picture again on the top.
Ah well.
