We are home, or at any rate we are on the taxi rank.
We did not get home last night, as you know, because of the motorway being closed. Instead we woke up this morning somewhere on the A5, sandwiched uncomfortably between a noisy road and a busy railway.
We discovered that we would have to go straight home. We could not loaf about any longer, even if it were not Friday, and even if we were somewhere lovelier than the A5, and we actually wanted to loaf about. We probably did want to but obviously we were not thinking about it, because of earning cash at work later.
The reason we had to go home because the camper van shower had sprung a mysterious leak in the night, and our water tanks were empty.
It was Friday anyway, and we were going home anyway, and anyway we still had plenty of water in the big bottles that we keep for the kettle. We do not use the tank water for this because it does not taste nice.
We hardly noticed the leak at all because it was in the shower tray, and so it didn’t matter. We still felt as though we were a bit on holiday, which obviously we weren’t, because of having to go home and go to work, but the morning was nice all the same.
We ambled about with the dogs and drank coffee and marvelled at the still-warm sunshine until it was time to set off. By now all of the motorways were helpfully open, and we did not any longer have to sit in long columns of grumpily smoke-chuffing lorries, waiting to travel onwards.
We had just pulled into a service station to take the dogs for a quick emptying when the phone rang.
For other dog-owning travellers, the services just after Keele on the M6 has got a large dog-emptying field where you can let them charge about for ages, and sniff lots of new and unfamiliar bottoms. They like this, but you will need your wellies, or flip flops if you do not mind squelching toes, because it is muddy.
The phone was my parents.
They had very kindly rescued us from the bailiffs. They had paid Lucy’s car insurance.
By this I mean that they had paid our overdraft, the one which came into being when we paid Lucy’s car insurance yesterday.
I was so monumentally relieved and grateful that I could hardly speak to them, and Mark had to do it. It is not good to be getting unexpected bills at this end of the tourist season, and we had been wondering, a bit bleakly, how we would manage.
After that the day was very much more cheerful. We chugged home, stopping at Asda for fruit and cheese as we passed, and had a last holiday stroll along the side of the river in Staveley. We have done this on our way home from camper van excursions for years, it is still a bit odd not to have to park next to the swings. I put my jumper on for the walk, because although the sun is warm, there is a cool autumn breeze, and we know that we are back in the north.
Getting home was a bit difficult.
Our house was very empty. There was nothing left in it except memories of children.
Mark said helpfully that the wine would last longer, and the fridge would stay full. This should have been encouraging, but my eyes leaked a bit anyway.
It was very tidy.
Mark fixed the leak in the camper van shower and I cleaned everything and unpacked.
It was very strange not to have children helping to carry things in. It was stranger still later to pop home from work and to have nobody to answer a shout of hello.
The house feels very, very quiet.
I made cheese on toast with tomatoes and spring onions to take to work, and Mark hoovered out the taxis. We had carelessly left these in a state of neglect, and mine was still full of sand from Blackpool, long ago in another life.
We went to work.
You have probably spotted that there is another diary entry written by Oliver next to this one.
He might be the smallest boy in Duffus, by about a foot, but he is certainly no pushover.
I am very impressed.
Have a picture of the autumn.
