I am terribly sleepy. Even though it is barely ten o’clock, I am struggling to string an articulate sentence together. It is a jolly good job that I am not driving a taxi.
We woke up horribly early. This was caused by the usual old-lady need to visit the bathroom, but wakefulness was something of a relief, because I was inexplicably dreaming that I had recklessly borrowed millions of pounds. I had spent this overnight, purchasing a shopping centre to convert into an entertainment venue, and was in the throes of the horrible realisation that unfortunately I had neglected to get planning permission.
I was just contemplating the spectacular uselessness of an unwanted shopping centre when I realised that it was daytime, and the problem melted away into the sunshine. I was glad about this, it turns out that not owning a shopping centre is a happily upbeat way to start the day. If only this absence were sufficient for every morning, I will have to try and remember it tomorrow.
Despite this inauspicious start, I am pleased to announce that our new conservatory is coming along at an exciting rate.
Some men turned up today with a lorry and delivered a large bag of sand and gravel and fifteen bags of cement. Mark will be mixing these manly ingredients into foundations for a new conservatory tomorrow, and then when it is all properly set in a few days he will be able to start building the walls.
You do not say that concrete has set. You say that it has gone off, but that sounds less appealing, like unwanted bananas.
He has dug trenches all over the garden and lined them with planks. I am not exactly sure what the planks do, but it all looks very professional. If he had a high vis vest and a hard hat you would not know at all that it was a low-budget DIY affair, apart from my washing dangling about all over the place, because of the sunshine.
Mark faffed about in the garden with a shovel and I took Lucy for another drive.
I am thoroughly enjoying being a driving instructor, apart from the occasional moments when I have to hold on tightly to the seat and breathe in sharply. We are not doing anything useful like following the test routes. We have had another tour of the beautiful sun-drenched springtime in the Lake District.
Today we have driven through Ambleside, twice because of practising the odd junction in the one way system. We went out to Grasmere and up over the pass to Langdale. This is another scary road, green and mossy and steep, and very narrow. Lucy flapped and breathed deeply, and squeaked round terrifying bends, and I admired the scenery. The sun was sliding slowly down below the mountain tops, and I gazed at the wonderful world and thought how splendid life can be.
Lucy dis not think that life was very splendid. She does not especially appreciate scenic driving and would prefer her roads wide, flat and uneventful. She staggered back into the house with evident relief, and retired to her homework as being decidedly preferable.
Mark and I did not go to work when it went dark. I went to the gym, and Mark settled down to glue bits of my taxi together in order to fashion one that works properly. It has got to go for an MOT tomorrow, and we have a small problem with the wing mirror. We park the car in the alley at the back of the house. It is a narrow alleyway, and we often come out to the car to find the wing mirror lying in pieces on the tarmac. Obviously it would be a false economy to purchase a new mirror, imagine how upsetting it would be to spend sixty quid and then find it in shattered bits because a British Gas van went past in a bit of a hurry.
Hence he has carefully collected the fragments and rebuilt them whilst I was labouring up and down the imaginary cycle route, in the gym. They are an auto-jigsaw, as you might be able to tell from the picture.
When I got home I poured us some wine, and we had an enormous dinner, and now I am going to bed.
There was an email from Oliver who has a French oral exam tomorrow.
It is terribly worrying to be a young person today. I hope he does all right.
