We are on the road.
We are actually on the road, not in any metaphorical kind of way, but really truly. Mark is driving and the engine is too loud to talk when you have got a sore throat, which I still have a bit, so I am writing to you.
We set off last night after we had finished work, in a flurry of loading up in the dark. We drove as far as the motorway and stopped in the little layby there with contented sighs of relief.
We sat in our cosy bed drinking tea and listening to the far-off rumble of the motorway and thought how happy we were. It was utterly true, there in our perfect home-built little nest, surrounded by our pretty things, and on the way to get the children. Life is splendid.
We were still in a state of peaceful bliss when we set off this morning. Roger Poopy curled up next to me on the special double seat which we installed so that I could have plenty of room to stretch out, but which turns out to be just a perfect size for a cramped person and a couple of dogs. I watched the beautiful golden and brown autumn countryside sailing past us and felt a lovely liquid warmth in my shoulders and neck, which I thought must be the result of my troubles melting away.
We were making a trip to Oldham first, because we wanted to buy some picture frame. About a year ago we bought some lengths of beautiful ornate picture frame to go around the mirror in the camper van bathroom. We have only just built the bathroom, and the frame looks splendid, heavy and with a string of little lights lining the inside of it.
The thing was, we liked the effect so much we thought we would have another mirror and some more lights around the ceiling as well, but we didn’t have any picture frame left.
Obviously matching picture frame could only be bought at the original shop, so we had got to go back there.
We took a photograph of the frame so that we would recognise it again, but it turned out not to be necessary. There was only one massively detailed ornate four-inch-thick picture frame sprayed in gold paint.
We bought another length of it and went off to meet my mother and father for lunch.
We went to a place called Housing Units, which I remember as being a small builder’s merchant which did a sideline in kitchen tables, and which seems to have won the lottery in the forty intervening years. It is now a massive department store stretching over several acres with half a dozen buildings and a couple of cafes.
We loved it.
Obviously since our current interest is bathrooms we had to go and have a look, and were enchanted by a friendly electronic loo which lifted its seat welcomingly for us as we walked past. We won’t be buying it because it was two thousand pounds, but it looked wonderful, offering to squirt-wash and blow dry the user’s bottom as they sat there, as part of its service. I would have liked to have had a go, but it was next to the cash desk, so I thought I had better not.
The cafe was jolly nice, in the way that cafes have become since the nineteen seventies, with salads made from interesting little leaves instead of lettuce, cheese that you can’t order because of not being quite sure how to pronounce it, and wine.
We had not had any breakfast, so this was a bonus.
It was lovely to see my parents. We told my mum how much she would have enjoyed the Star Trek exhibition in Blackpool, but she seemed quite sanguine about having missed it, even though we suggested that she might like to join us next year. I told them about the children and their adventures, and they told us about a play they had been to see in Halifax that sounded really good, it is called Northern Broadside, so we will have to save up and see if we can get tickets.
We will have to try harder to save up, because we found a wonderful corner with bits of bathroom things in damaged boxes, or that nobody wanted because they were tasteless, and in no time at all we were fifty quid poorer, so my dad had to pay for lunch.
Possibly the best bit was that they had got all of their Christmas decorations out already.
I like Christmas, and would not mind at all having the decorations up all year round, if it didn’t mean that we would lose the lovely daffodils in spring, and the pumpkins and orange and yellow berry arrangements at Halloween.
I have been too idle to put up any autumn flower arrangements so far this year, so it was an absolute joy to be catapulted straight into Christmas.
There were little lanterns inside which it perpetually snowed on Father Christmas, and beautiful white frosted trees decorated with the palest pink roses and soft feathery owls, and singing Christmas trees, and I loved it all, and still have ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’ going round and round in my head on a perpetual ear-worm loop.
Afterwards we had a cup of coffee in the car park and showed off our lovely new bathroom, which our guests politely admired. This is the whole point of showing your parents anything, it is just the same when you are fifty as when you have made something out of a toilet roll when you are six.
We had to head off then, and I had my second rush hour in two days.
We went to Bradford for Mark’s battery.
I have only visited Bradford once, and it was dark, we parked on a building site in the town centre and hoped nobody would notice us, which they didn’t.
This was my first chance to see it in the daylight, and I liked it very much indeed.
Bradford is made of rows and rows of little stone houses all tumbling down great steep hills interleaved with corner shops selling great stacks of melons and strawberries and beans from displays outside. Mark said that little local shops will do better here, because it still has more of a walking culture because quite a lot of women don’t drive. I think he is probably right, if you didn’t drive in Bradford you would not want to walk very far, the hills are massive. Certainly nobody had a bike.
There were a lot more brown people than live in the Lake District, and there were dozens of shops selling the most beautiful shalwar kameez and saris, I saw one dress that I would have liked to own, a beautiful long-sleeved affair in deep blue with ornate gold embroidery in a long ribbon down the front, but the shop was shut. In any case I am not sure how I would go about buying clothes from a different culture, what if it was an evening dress and I accidentally wore it to go out for lunch, so that everybody would know I was an idiot.
We bought Mark’s batteries instead, from an Indian youth who seemed to share Mark’s interest in batteries, and I retreated back to the camper van whilst they discussed bolts and air vents, and in the end parted as friends, with the Indian chap saying that he would call Mark next time something interesting came into their garage for dismantling. If he does then I suppose we will be going back, I could always ask his advice about dresses.
We left Bradford a bit regretfully, I would have liked to stay and perhaps visited a curry house, but it will be easier to wake up near to school in the morning, and in any case we have spent all of our money now.
We are heading towards Oliver’s school as I write.
The sun is slowly setting, and the evening is clear and cool and calm.
It is a beautiful world.
LATER NOTE: I have just discovered that Number One Daughter has been shortlisted for the Women In Defence Awards as an Inspirational Woman In Defence. We are all jolly impressed, what a brilliant thing to have achieved.
I imagine she inspires lots of young soldiers to get out of bed and run for miles every morning, perhaps I should listen to her a bit more and see if it works with family.
