The picture is of a worrying hole.
It is the hole that comes out of the loo in our bathroom. If anybody forgets and uses the loo then there could be a terrible poo misfortune, most especially for Mark who is working underneath it.
I did not want to use the loo at all until Mark said that nobody should, and now I can’t stop thinking about it. The human mind is like that.
He is moving the loo pipe so that it goes straight down and into another pipe in the ground instead of above the back door. This one has not been very good for ages. It occasionally leaks a bit and has to be mended by Mark with some poo restricting glue.
I have been sitting in the new conservatory sewing labels into school uniform and talking to him. I do not think that he was listening very much, because whenever he said anything it did not seem very related to the conversation we were having, but was incomprehensible whitter about pipes.
I talked anyway. It is nice to have some time together. I expect the Queen sat and talked to Prince Philip whilst she was sewing Prince Charles’ name labels into his school uniform as well. Probably his just said Charles, I am quite sure the Queen would not have wanted to have to sew on fifty labels that said Prince Charles Mountbatten Windsor. It would go practically all the way round the collar and take for ever. I am glad ours just say Ibbetson. How tiresome to have a surname like MacDonald Of Sleat, like one of Oliver’s friends.
It has been the most confusing day, and I am not exactly sorry that it is almost over. We are not going to go to work, partly because of the hole in the wall that needs a pipe on it, and partly because I have got myself into a befuddled state that would be best gently remedied with a glass of wine and a quiet sit in the garden.
As you know, we were very late going to bed last night. We were not late by our own standards, because it was only half past two in the morning and usually we are still at work then. However, half past two is very late indeed for people who have got to get up again at half past five.
We had to take Lucy to Lancaster. She had a challenging email yesterday afternoon requiring her to be in Waterford in Ireland today, to protect some Irish festival goers from the evils of drugs and other misbehaviour.
This sounds quite exciting, because this time she is on shifts that go on all night, so she will be dealing with all the excited rascally customers instead of the calm sensible ones who have brought their children and just want to have a lovely time and chill to the beat. The festival is called All Together Now, and looks very Irish, full of pan pipes and people dancing with their hands on their hips.
However, first she had to get there.
Of course her employers were running a coach, although she was not terrifically thrilled about this, because coach travel is never brilliant. Particularly it is not brilliant on the way home, when everybody has been smoking and drinking beer and sleeping in muddy clothes for days without the benefit of sanitary toilets or washing facilities.
All the same, coach travel it had to be, and we discovered that the coach departed from Lancaster at seven o’clock this morning.
We did not even shower and go properly to bed. Instead we slept in our clothes, which makes it easier to get up again.
Fortunately it turned out that Mark had been very organised indeed whilst I was writing to you last night. He had thoughtfully prepared a flask of coffee and sausage sandwiches. These turned out to be an absolutely inspired idea, and we microwaved them this morning and ate them in the car, sleepily.
We waved Lucy off on her journey to the Irish pipers, armed with her pillow and the intention of sleeping all the way to Ireland, and came home.
It is astonishing how many people are milling about at eight o’clock in the morning. I am almost never out at that time, and I was completely astounded. There are people absolutely everywhere, what on earth are they all doing?
We did not mill about. We had a shower and went back to bed.
After an hour my phone rang, from my dress pocket, somewhere in the washing basket, and needed to be answered.
We got up and did things then, after some more coffee, but it left us very disorientated all day. It is very peculiar to be going to bed several times in a night. I am looking forward to the next time, actually. It seems to have been a peculiarly sleepless day.
Mark has just told me that I can use the loo if I want to.
Obviously I don’t now.
