We thought that we would spend all of today doing things to the camper van.
This turned into the sort of idea that makes people talk about Best Laid Plans, because actually we didn’t go anywhere near it.
We were woken up four hours after we went to bed by some person ringing my mobile phone to talk about fuel cards.
We couldn’t go back to sleep then.
We didn’t exactly get up. Instead we made some coffee and sat in bed looking at each other in a dull state of stupefaction and trying to organise our thoughts into something coherent enough to be described as plans.
Eventually we had got to get up, and I staggered around in the kitchen for a while. I was too thick-headed to do anything terribly sensible, so in the end settled for the ironing. There is always plenty of this, and it can be done without a great deal of mental exertion, so I spent a soporific hour standing dreamily in front of the big rotary iron, passing sheets and pillowcases back and forth, scenting them with rose water and feeling tranquil.
Mark had got to go to Kendal. He needed to do an assessment at Kendal Library.
We have been thinking that he might do some exams in order not to be left behind by Lucy, and also because he might learn something useful.
Due to his extreme dyslexia Mark’s relationship with education has always been a mildly dysfunctional one. When he left school he never thought to go and find out his exam results, so to this day we don’t know what they were. Since he couldn’t write much at the time we have always supposed that they weren’t very good, and not bothered about this.
Somehow this did not stop him talking himself on to his engineering courses later: so in the end everything worked out all right. All the same he managed to leave school as unqualified as the day he arrived there, unless we count his Bronze Award in swimming, which I suppose we could if we wanted to give his school credit for something.
We have since thought that we might remedy this. He is perfectly clever enough to pass exams, and has passed quite a few since, mostly the sort which are flexible about spelling. Also he is interested in new challenges and likes the sort of puzzles that you get in maths.
Hence he has put his name down to do a course in GCSE maths at Kendal College.
Today was the day when he had to go for an assessment to see if he was clever enough to be allowed to do it.
I stayed at home and ironed things whilst Mark went off to Kendal Library to compare seven twelfths and 0.6. I was glad that it was him and not me, because of the four hours sleep. I don’t think I would have passed, so it is fortunate that I have got an O Level in maths already.
Of course he passed easily, but came home with the tiresome news that the course won’t start unless seven other people would also like a GCSE in maths, and so far there are only two. We have got our fingers crossed now that the Lake District will develop an interest in personal development and that some farmers or kitchen porters suddenly decide that they would like to know how to balance both sides of an equation.
He washed up for me whilst I cooked some rice. This is to take with us tomorrow, because we are going to the dentist, so obviously we are going to need to go in the camper van and stay the night.
We packed things and cooked things and then we went back to bed until it was time for work, thinking how nice it is not to be in the sort of job where you have got to be in an office at half past three in the afternoon but can be in bed at home instead.
Numbers One and Two Daughters phoned up this evening, which was ace. Number One Daughter was having a crisis because her remaining dog had done a poo on the spare bed and Ritalin Boy has turned into a pony called Twilight Barking in his spare time. Number Two Daughter was having a crisis because she has resigned from her job, in a taxi-driver-hand-signals sort of way, and she and her partner are having an adventure. Unfortunately the fan belt on the adventure has snapped, and they are somewhere in the middle of Canada sleeping in the back of a hire car for the night.
I do like my family, how interesting they all are.
It makes up for me being the sort of person who does the ironing and goes back to bed.
I didn’t take a picture. You get the camper van again.
Sorry.
