I am having an adventure.
As you might recall, I have got to learn to be assertive in Manchester tomorrow. This is a scary prospect for somebody as timid as I am.
After some serious thought, I decided I was just not brave enough to face all the big rough drivers in Manchester rush hour. Also it meant I was going to have to leave at six in the morning, which counting backwards meant getting up at five.
I am not up for this. Five o’ clock is going to bed time, not getting up. I would not suggest that you, the reader, go to sleep all day and then get up at teatime to dash off through hideous traffic, spend all night going to bossiness lessons until five in the morning, after which you could drive for another couple of hours to get home. I am sure that there is nothing wrong with the idea in principle, but it is disorientating and mental even to think about, especially because I have got to go to actual work afterwards.
Hence when I got up this morning I booked myself into an hotel a couple of miles away from the prison.
To my complete astonishment it is a perfectly nice hotel. It has cost me thirty nine quid and includes wi-fi, parking and breakfast. I would not have expected to be accommodated in the prison itself for that price, and hence am very pleasantly surprised to find that my bedroom has got a full complement of walls, windows, a shower and a functional bed.
I am writing this from the bar. I have purchased a glass of wine and am sitting by the window hoping that nobody will steal my car.
The reason I am anxious about this is that it does not lock. Obviously it has not locked for years, but as everybody knows, Manchester is a rascally place full to bursting with criminal types, not all of whom are detained in the prison. I suppose at least if anybody wishes to steal anything out of it, like my handkerchief or emergency peppermints, they will not need to break the window first.
The Adventure has occupied the whole day.
I took the dogs for a long walk this morning, because they are going to have to go to work with Mark in the morning, and his friend Ted will chuck them in their dog kennel. This is all right because Ted’s wife does this for a living, it is a sort of Playgroup for dogs, which goes to show that people in the Lake District have got more money than they should be allowed to look after. Ted’s wife employs kennelmaids who take the dogs on nature walks and read stories to them. Our dogs are anarchists who need to be encouraged with Good Dog Sausages and threats of violence, they will like to spend the day charging about and fighting everybody else.
Anyway we walked up Mill Beck to compensate for their impending abandonment. After that I was very busy.
The other thing that I needed to think about was Mark. I know that he is a fully functional grown up, but that is not the same as knowing where his underwear is kept or how to make his breakfast.
When we discussed this last night he explained that he managed to look after himself reasonably adequately before he met me, which is not strictly true, because his mother and some girlfriends helped. Also his standards have been raised in the meantime. He is now expected to wear matching socks, clean his fingernails and put his boots on the right feet, and the difficulty is that in his soul he is still Oliver.
I baked fresh bannock and made coffee chocolates, and then cooked an enormous gammon joint in order that he would have things to eat even if the zombie apocalypse happened whilst I was away. It is a huge gammon joint and there’s are two bannock cakes, in the worst case scenario he will have time to find another wife before it has all gone.
He has got clean clothes and the alarm is already set for tomorrow morning. I have telephoned him to make sure that he is all right, and he assures me that he is.
In the meantime I am far from home in a strange bar. I am looking very forward to learning how to assert myself tomorrow, when you read the next entry I will be a changed person. I will be able to say what I want and what I think without fear of anybody’s disapproval.
I am completely intrigued. It is going to be splendid.
