We are going on our summer holiday to Woking tomorrow, and today has been one long flap of rushing about getting ready.
Actually it has been one short flap, because we did not get up until lunchtime.
We would not have got up then, except the doorbell rang with a tiresome new postman wondering if we would look after a parcel for next door. I hope that we have a new postman because the normal one is on holiday. I like the normal one very much. Not only does he understand perfectly well about not ringing the bell halfway through the night, but also he is a non-speaker.
I do not know what the correct and acceptable term for this is, other than ‘peaceful’, but it makes for a very contented relationship. I do not know if he can’t talk, or just prefers not to, but all the same it has made him into my favourite postman ever.
He never ever wants to indulge in all the awful tiresome pointless whittering that people do during brief acquaintanceships. He does not want to smile cheerily into my eyes before breakfast, and expect me to be pleased about it and smile back, and he never wants me to agree with his opinion of the weather. He nods, and says something that sounds like ‘ah’ and I say ‘thank you’, and we go our separate ways. We have this conversation almost every day, and it is refreshingly uncomplicated and relaxing.
If only all human interaction were this simple.
Anyway, it wasn’t him this morning. It was some new postman, chatty and chirpy and friendly, and a complete nuisance when we were asleep in bed.
We had coffee then and contemplated the hundreds of things I had not got to forget to do before we left.
We remembered to pack Oliver’s sunhat and recharge the batteries for the toothbrushes. We remembered to pack the dog leads and put the bin out in the alley. Mark bathed the dogs and I baked some swirly tomato bread, and we trailed backwards and forwards with armloads of clothes to and from the camper van.
We have not packed anything warm to wear, because as you probably know, Woking is in the glorious Deep South, and we think that even if the weather is rubbish it will be better than it is here, because it absolutely always is. Londoners worry about Global Warming far more than we do, mostly because there isn’t much evidence of it here. I have not packed a single vest, overcoat or pair of sheepskin boots. If it turns out to be chilly after all then I am going to be very sorry.
It would be unimaginable for the weather to be worse than it is here at the moment, actually. I am sitting on the taxi rank in an absolute deluge of rain. This started this afternoon and has been filling the roads up ever since. There are not exactly floods, but some excitingly deep puddles, and I have had some thrilling high-speed aquaplaning moments tonight.
Since I started writing we have come to a decision which revises the first paragraph. We have been hearing grim stories about roads and floods and cautious drivers, chugging along in such a way as to win them the approval of the Road Safety Commission, and we have decided that we do not wish to become stuck in such a tedious activity.
We are going to set off tonight after we have finished work. We think that at four in the morning they will all be still in bed. We will have the roads to ourselves.
Also, as Number One Daughter remarked, when I mentioned it to her earlier on this evening, I never can wait when something exciting is happening.
Lucy is there already, she went directly to Woking after her latest festival, in order to borrow her sister’s make-up and inspect the contents of her wardrobe to see if anything was worth borrowing.
Tomorrow we will be truly there, on our holidays. Oh, to be in Woking.
I am very excited indeed.
Have a picture of Number One Daughter with one of her cadets. She is the little one.
