We have arrived home full of resolution.
We have resolved to do things to make our lives better.
This was an inspiration initially brought about by a horrid smell in the camper van, but which expanded, as these things do, to encompass all of our lives until we had resolved to embark upon a programme of all-round improvements.
How jolly splendid it is to be inspired. By this time next year I expect we will hardly recognise ourselves.
We thought that the horrid smell might either be related to Roger Poopy, who can be a bit whiffy, or to a possible mouldy damp patch.
We could not find any mouldy damp patches last night when we looked, and so the finger of suspicion swivelled around to poor Roger Poopy. He has developed a pungent male-dogginess since his adolescence, and it is making me not love him very much.
He has been booked in at a low-budget vet in Kendal to have The Operation.
We did contemplate the two-bricks-and-keep-your-thumbs-out-of-the-way method but decided that it was likely to be prohibitively messy.
It is one of the terribly unkind things that farmers do to little boy lambs. They do it with a rubber band. Mark says not to believe what Eddie Grundy said on The Archers, and that the lambs are in horrible pain for a few days. After this they get better and forget. At least I imagine they forget, of course they can’t talk and so we would hardly know if they turned out to be traumatised for ever. It seems very unfair when they are only going to last until September, which is when they are usually big enough to be eaten.
Anyway, Roger Poopy is probably going to outlast September, and since he has got the good fortune not to have been born a little boy lamb, he is going to be properly treated with an anaesthetic and some sharp scissors.
It had jolly well better make him smell better, or he might not make it until September either, not that anybody would wish to eat him.
Having made that resolution we took the carpet up in the camper van. There were no obvious wee stains, but it was very clear that it was revoltingly filthy, because the bit that had been under the door strip was a completely different colour.
We purchased some new carpet on the way back from my parents’ house.
They had to go out for a hospital appointment this morning, so we rolled in from the camper and joined them for a little while before they had to dash off.
This was a rather splendid start to the day. We helped ourselves to about six cups of coffee each, and an enormous hot crumpets and butter sort of breakfast. By the time we ambled out again, we were feeling replete and pleased with the world. Mark raided the wood store on the way, which was handy.
On the way home we bought some baby bottle steriliser which we squirted into the water tank in the interests of hygiene. After that we bought a new carpet.
There is an ace carpet shop near my parents’ house which saves offcuts and sells them for about twenty quid a shot.
Of course the camper van does not need very much carpet at all, and we found a rather splendid bit of thick carpet at a bargain budget price, and as a bonus it is the same colour as the dogs. We will hardly notice the stray dog hairs at all.
We thought at first that we might not bother with home at all, and just go to the farm and potter about doing things to the camper van, but then we recollected that it was full of dining chairs in massively unwieldy cardboard boxes.
We went home and had an entertaining half an hour trying to wedge them out through the back window of the camper. We had to take the window out first, and even then it was a very tight fit.
Eventually, with a lot of pushing and shouting, we managed, and they landed on the road behind us with a plop, rather like a hideous camper van childbirth. Then we set to cleaning it up.
We dragged the sheets out, and the towels, and the dog bed. The last might have been involved in the problem of the smell. It was so unsavoury that I did not even want to take it in the house.
We took the carpets out, but decided not to go any further with camper van restorations, resolving that we would turn our attention there next. First, we thought, we would carry on with our Home Improvements.
We are going to restructure our lives ready for the new conservatory that we have not built yet.
We are going to have an enormous cupboard in the living room for storing coats and boots and shoes and scarves and all of the other clutter that piles up around back doors. It will not matter that we have filled the whole of the living room with it, because we will be able to loaf around in the conservatory when we want to be idle.
As it happened, Mark had some very useful lengths of wood kindly donated my my father, and so we thought that there was no time like the present.
He has cut a hole in the carpet now, so we have got to carry on.
Onwards and upwards.
Have a picture.
