Anniversary

It is our wedding anniversary.

We have been married for ages and ages and ages.

I looked back through diaries from previous years and discovered that we have celebrated every year in exactly the same way as we have done today, which is by forgetting all about it and not doing anything at all. Obviously this is not important, since we are still married, so obviously having a party does not help you stay together. I am glad about this, it is much cheaper this way.

As well as our wedding anniversary, it is the Easter Holiday, and I am on the taxi rank.

We do this every year as well.

We have started very early so as to make more money, and it feels even earlier because of the seasonal excess of daylight.

This tiresome phenomenon has meant that we have had to clean our taxis. If you only work when it is dark then nobody notices the state of your taxi, and you can get away with all sorts of alcohol-and-burger-related horrors. Unfortunately, the summertime means an end to this idle behaviour, and so today Mark took the hoover and a bucket and cleaned the taxis whilst I made our picnics.

We had got out of bed later than usual, but earlier than is sensible if you are going to be rushing around the Lake District for much of the following night. I was pleased about this really, because it always feels virtuous to get a good run at the day, and this definitely involves starting before lunchtime. Somehow having an afternoon nap later on  does not corrode this sense of hard-working perfection at all.

We were all at home for the first time in ages, and so went up the fell together. This was brilliant, it is ace to be with the children.

We talked about our approaching holiday. That is to say, we talked on the way down. On the way up we were all huffing and puffing too much to say anything, except Oliver, who was so far in front anyway that he didn’t count.

We have got two whole days next week, all to ourselves. Mark is not going to be installing rural broadband, we are not going to be driving taxis, and the children are at home.

On the first of those days, as you know, we are going to meet my parents for lunch and then go to Waterstones and to the theatre. The second was up for some discussion. It will be a whole free day, to do what we like. We do not want to waste it being indecisive and so it is good to plan these things in advance.

We contemplated this prospect carefully.

Mark suggested that we made the first day an even extra celebratory day by going out to eat again, after the theatre, in the middle of the night.

We thought this was a brilliant idea.

In the Lake District everything closes at ten o’ clock, so that people are encouraged to go to bed and have a nice healthy sleep ready for invigorating fresh air and outdoor adventures in the morning. You cannot get food anywhere at all after half past nine.

Please remember this if you come here on your holidays. We have an awful lot of taxi passengers who have come from places like Liverpool, and who find it almost impossible to believe. They have got to go back to their hotel rooms still hungry, which is not at all nice on their holidays.

The thought of eating in the middle of the night like true cosmopolitan metropolitan sophisticated types of people enchanted all of us. You can do this in Manchester.

We agreed unanimously that this would be splendid, but it did not solve the dilemma of what to do the next day.

I suggested that we went to Blackpool.

We like Blackpool.

We thought that we could eat doughnuts from the candy floss stall on the prom, and fish and chips from the Grill by the Pleasure Beach.

Somebody pointed out that there was something of a theme to our holiday plans, and that so far they basically amounted to a Grand Tour of all our favourite restaurants. None of us had been able to think of anything that we would like to do, apart from eating things.

We considered this.

Lucy said that perhaps we would be able to think more clearly once we had had breakfast, and then we remembered that we were all really hungry, which obviously impedes your thought processes, I have read about this. If you are a hostage or in a prisoner of war camp, or even just somebody who has gone out for a long walk before breakfast, then you think about food all the time.

This turned out to be the case, and after sausages and crumpets we remembered that there were other nice things in the world as well as food.

I suggested the Pleasure Beach, but was shouted down by the children, who said that it was boring, and that we had been on every single ride so many times they would really rather do their homework.

This is a familiar experience of childhood, but I have to say that I did not expect it to be a feature of my adult life. I will have to wait until I am retired to live on ice cream and sweets and play on funfairs the whole time. One of the things I love about Mark is that he thinks it is all right that I want to do this.

In the end we settled for playing on the beach, and a paddle, and cycling up and down the prom. This means that I will have to remember to take spare clothes for everybody, because our holiday paddling always, always turns into a swim, even if it is snowing, and even if we are all still dressed. This is one of the things I like about going on holiday with the children. We can dare each other into doing all sorts of recklessly foolish things, and somebody will always have a go.

We have got a weekend full of earning money and then we can go.

I shall start packing tomorrow.

I am very excited indeed.

Happy anniversary to us.