I have had a very busy day preparing a picnic and packing the camper van.
I have made buns. These are boy-fodder for Oliver and Son of Oligarch, who is joining us for tomorrow’s picnic. I am trying not to eat too much, because of my natural tendency towards rotundity, so I have decorated them with a marshmallow picture of a pig in order to remind me to desist. So far it has worked every time except once.
You will be as surprised as I was to discover that Mark has actually made sufficient fortune, at his rural broadband activities, to ensure that we can leave the taxi rank early and get some sleep before Oliver’s school speech day.
This is a magnificent turn up for the books, because I have been worrying dreadfully about our income this week. The problem has not been that we have missed a couple of evenings’ work in order to behave disgracefully on Morecambe beach. The problem is that it doesn’t matter in the least if we miss work, because there is nobody here.
There are, of course, no trains coming to Windermere. There have been none all week, and there will be none next week, and quite possibly for longer, because of the railway crisis, for which somebody will probably be awarded a CBE in the near future.
No trains has meant that lots of people have not come on holiday, and we are very, very quiet.
This is pleasantly peaceful but not terribly lucrative, which I don’t mind too much now, because of the rural broadband serendipity.
In consequence of the trains and the sunshine, we have become very sociable on the taxi rank, spending much of the evenings hovering about chatting. This is rather splendid. Driving a taxi is a bit of a solitary pastime, since you don’t count the customers as company, and it is nice to have people to talk to.
In between conversing and the occasional customer, I am reading a truly fascinating book about drugs, and have decided that when I get too old to care about ruining my health or being arrested, I am going to try some. It was written by a chap who used to advise the Government on drug-related matters, and who was sacked by some prime minister who did not want the embarrassment of having to keep ignoring the scientific advice in order to further his own pet ideas.
I was jolly interested in everything he had to say, it seems that our anxieties about drug abuse are so great that we do not even allow science to run tests on some substances to find out exactly what they do, even though some of them seem likely to be useful. There is one drug, currently banned, which appears to cure PTSD, given in a single dose at the time of therapy. I might see if I can get some for Oliver if his troubles with his French exam persist.
He is likely to become very troubled soon, because I have heard from Gordonstoun today, and discovered that they have moved the scholarship examinations to August this year.
This is a calamity, firstly because we have got to be at work. Missing August Bank Holiday will cost us a fortune, assuming that we have got a railway service by then, and secondly because the exams were supposed to be in February, and he is nowhere near ready yet. Poor Oliver, he is going to have a busy summer. I have emailed school and asked them to provide some intensive preparatory work
I have had an email from them in return telling me that the weather forecast is truly awful, and that the picnic might not go ahead, but bring wellies just in case.
I don’t mind having a picnic in wellies.
I am excited about seeing Oliver.
I might even eat another piggy cake.
