Eau dear

No word from Oliver.

Also, my week has caught up with me.

I slept late, and then after that went back to bed again.

In consequence of all of this excessive oblivion I have not managed to achieve anything much, unless you count emptying the washing basket. Mark had fixed the leaking door seal on the washing machine whilst I was in London, which was fortunate, because he had brought back a substantial quantity of washing from his trip to Scotland.

When I put the washing machine on we made the depressing discovery that it was still leaking. It turned out that as well as the huge split we had discovered in the door seal, the rubber filling pipe was leaking as well.

I wonder if we have upset some watery Gods somewhere. Over the last couple of weeks we have had more watery problems than you can shake a wet divining rod at.

There was the leaking freezer, which we fixed, and the leaking dehumidifier, which Mark had to take completely to bits to fix. This left a large squelchy bit on the upstairs landing, which initially was blamed on Roger Poopy, but after it grew to above flip-flop height, we realised was due to Natural Causes.

Not only are we now in the throes of the Washing Machine Difficulty, we have also got other watery things to worry about. Whilst Mark was away in Scotland the water pump on the camper van engine packed up. We have had to buy another, which cost a hundred quid, and is still in a box by the back door waiting for someone to get round to it. Then on top of that…

…on top of that, the hose from the domestic camper van water tank, the bit that lets us have showers and make coffee, split. This leaked out the entire contents of the water tank all over the lovely new camper van carpet. We could not blame Roger Poopy for this, because even he does not produce leaks of several gallons, and in any case, he has not been there.

Today, at least until it rained, the camper van carpets were drying in the garden, and the kitchen carpets were drying in the kitchen. Both dehumidifiers, the one that reliably works so far, and the newly-fixed one, were belting along flat out, and there was washing draped around all over the place, like those strings of flags that they put on ships to tell you that every man has got to do his duty or Nelson will be cross with him.

I thought that all of this was steamy and humid until I got in my taxi tonight, where I discovered that the windscreen demister was not working.

Lucy calls this the demystifier. I think this is a nice description. If you can see where you are going then you are far less likely to be mystified by driving. Anyway, it isn’t working, it has rained really, really hard all night, and my taxi driving has become a bit mystifying in consequence.

Perhaps all the guardian spirits that keep water in its right places on the outside of pipes and motors have all buzzed off to look after Bluebird and Ted.

We might have to manage without them for a bit.

On a less watery note, during my absence Mark has painted half of the kitchen in purple.

It isn’t exactly purple, it is a very pale lavender. It looks beyond peculiar with the rest of the terracotta and green colour scheme, and it is my fault.

He rang me whilst the dresser was out of the way and asked if he should go to B & Q for some paint. I said no, there was some left over from Lucy’s bedroom that I wanted to use, and gave him precise instructions about where it was and how to find it.

Unfortunately I neglected to mention what colour it was.

I had not realised that in fact we had completely run out of the creamy coloured paint that I liked and had thought would be nice in the kitchen.

There was no beautiful creamy coloured paint in the place I had described.

What there was was half a tin of lavender paint.

Where Mark has received clear instructions he tends to suspend his own judgement and follow them, because this leads to less shouting.

Hence we have now got half a lavender kitchen.

I have tried hard to like it, but failed. It is not the first time I have tried to come to appreciate a lavender and orange colour scheme, and I have not been successful in the past either.

We are going to have to buy some more paint and paint it out.

Mark is relieved at this decision as well.

We think we might go to B & Q tomorrow.

Have a picture of a Lake District summer.