If I had a message for the world it would not be about world peace.
It would go: “Do not walk behind reversing taxis.”
I think if people could be encouraged to take this much responsibility for their own continued existence and well-being the world would be a better place.
Also my life would become considerably less tiresome.
It is bank holiday weekend and very busy. Of course when they are on holiday everybody forgets that all the normal dangers of life still apply. People are wandering around Bowness as though immortality has actually been invented and is a real thing. If they all survive the night it will be because we are all being very careful indeed, not because they deserve to.
The sunshine is lovely, and has turned everybody lots of shades of cerise pink, except me. I am not pink because I have not been out in the sunshine very much, except to peg the washing on the line and to have a last cup of tea before we came out to work. I do not mind not being pink. I am sitting here looking at lots of middle aged ladies who are sporting that colour scheme, and on the whole think it is probably wiser just to stick to greyish.
Whilst the world has been changing colour I have been making a curry. It is a very nice curry but I have got indigestion at the moment and mango and coconut curry has not helped.
We got up so late that this was pretty much all I have had time to achieve. Mark and Oliver went to the farm to find another bike for Oliver to take with him to school. Mark collects bikes out of skips, although only when I am not with him. He is not allowed to go rooting about in skips when we are together.
He fixes them and makes them go properly, and sometimes he builds whole new ones out of the bits, like a sort of Frankenstein of the cycling world. Anyway, Oliver had outgrown his bike, and Mark had been preparing a new one, which they collected today.
He also collected a new fridge for Lucy, which he also found in a skip some time ago and had been keeping secret. He was not keeping it secret as a surprise but because he knew that he would be in trouble if I knew that he had got it. He had wanted to take the whole workings out of it and build a new hot water system in the corner of the living room.
I would like a new hot water system but am not convinced that a partially dismantled old fridge would be a decorative asset to the living room, so was not entirely sorry that he had decided to forgo this particular experiment in order to help Lucy into her new life. He said that it would be fine, and he was quite sure that another fridge would come along sooner or later.
He brought the fridge into the conservatory and plugged it in whilst he and Oliver messed about with the brakes on the bike. It is an unbeautiful fridge but seems to work. Mark thought perhaps we could cover it in gold vinyl. I expect Lucy will be very pleased, what a memory of home.
They also brought home some pipes for the solar panel and a handy tool box which Oliver said that Daddy had found in a skip on their way home. He was very apologetic about this, he had tried to stop him but to no avail. I said that it would probably be fine but please not to mention it at school.
The Prodigal Dog is very pleased to be home. He knows that we have been talking about his rascalliness. Every time he has heard the words ‘camper van’ he has looked very guilty and tried to become as small and insignificant as possible.
We are pleased that he is not lost for ever.
Have a picture of the Lake District.
