Mark has been fixing the camper van all day.
Regular readers will know that it suffers from a recurrent pain in the brakes, which Mark has diagnosed as needing a complete brake replacement. He had a set of old brake callipers which he said would do a better job. He has had them reconditioned, and today he started to fit them.
He came back into the house looking grim. The old set had collapsed so badly that it would probably have broken into a million pieces and killed us instantly had we gone anywhere at all.
I did not entirely believe this, the camper van does not really go fast enough to kill us, but clearly we had all been in terrible peril, so it was a good job that Mark was fixing it.
We weren’t in much terrible peril anyway, because we haven’t used it since the brakes started to get a bit spongy a while ago. Mark said that the brakes weren’t quite right and so we could not go anywhere. I was sorry about this, but nobody goes on holiday in February anyway, so it didn’t matter. As a result, the poor camper van has been sitting by itself, abandoned at the roadside ever since, with nothing to do apart from feature in people’s holiday photographs and the occasional magazine article about weird forms of transport.
We have been prompted out of our brake-related inactivity by a sudden Springtime longing to have a holiday.
Well, a mild sort of longing, more a vague feeling of the seasons changing, and of being mildly bored with taxis and wondering if the world might be more exciting somewhere else.
We have been talking about this for a day or two. We thought that we would like to go to Manchester and buy some new jeans and perhaps some underwear.
We probably won’t do this because it is still only March and we haven’t yet got any cash.
All the same we thought that we would like to go away, and so Mark turned his attention to the camper van so that we would have our own portable hotel again.
I was still thinking about underwear, mostly because one of the underwires in my elderly bra was poking itself into my armpit. I looked on the computer to see if I could buy a new one at a bargain price.
I couldn’t. Half an hour later I had looked at dozens of pictures of underwear, all worn by ladies without spare tyres or stretch marks, and none of which was in my price range. This was because I hadn’t got a price range, really I was looking for a free gift.
Also it turns out that it is the end of the season for underwear. I did not know that underwear had a season, but the lady in the underwear shop explained when I rang her. New underwear comes out in April, and so in March you have got leftovers from last year and boring colours like white that don’t have seasons. The leftovers from last year are all in peculiar sizes, which is obviously why they are left over. The bra that I really wanted, which is called, inexplicably, Sunny Cloud, could only be purchased in a fitting called 36I, so if that is your bra size you are in luck, consider yourself tipped off here.
I told Mark about it when he came in. He is much more interested in my underwear than I am in his. When his needs replacing I just chuck some in the trolley in Asda. Mark wears identical sets of medium sized boxer shorts. They are simple and comfortable and you can get three pairs for a fiver.
Three bras cost a very lot more than that.
Mark thought that I should buy lots and lots, and then buy some exciting colours as well, when it is the new season in a few weeks. I disregarded his suggestions because they were related neither to prudent economy nor comfort, and he ate quite a lot of biscuits whilst he was thinking about it.
In the end I abandoned thoughts of underwear as just being too complicated, and got on with my job of the day, which was to make pasta. You will be able to see this in the picture.
I made some with tomato purée, and some with spinach, and some without anything exciting at all. There is not very much of the last one, you can get boring pasta in the Co-op if you really want it.
I like making pasta. I have got a little squishing machine for the purpose. You turn the handle and feed the dough between two rollers, like a mangle. You fold the dough and squish it again and again until it is silky-smooth , and then you feed it through a cutting bit at the back which turns it into spaghetti.
It is very messy and takes ages, but is rather satisfying.
I hung it all on the pan rack over the stove to dry, although bits of it kept slipping off and had to be picked off the carpet. Obviously I did not put those back, and the dogs ate them.
If Mark manages to finish fixing the camper van by tomorrow we might go away, and then we can eat fresh pasta and not want to go to restaurants.
We will save a fortune. Jamie Oliver charges a tenner a plate for pasta. At that rate of economy we are bound to be able to afford some new underwear soon.
Maybe in the new season.
