We are leaving tonight.
Once we have finished work we are going to jump into the camper van and depart for sunnier climes.
None of that is true, although it sounded nicely dramatic. In fact when we have finished work we are going to shower and then flap about for ages, emptying the fridge and rushing around trying to remember to pack things like the books we are reading and Mark’s medicines and the spare socks, because we have not actually packed anything at all yet.
We are not going to go to sunnier climes either. We are going to go to Gordonstoun to collect Oliver.
Oliver does not finish until Friday, but we have been invited to dinner at school on Thursday evening. Tonight is only Tuesday, but we are going to set off anyway so that we don’t have to be on time for anything, and so that we can chug along slowly looking at things, and so that we can just be in one another’s company with nothing much that needs doing.
We can’t remember the last time that we did this.
I am looking forward to it very much.
It has meant that we have been very busy.
Ted did not need Mark again today, and so the whole week is turning into a holiday all to ourselves.
We worked late last night, so today did not exactly start early, but once it did we hardly had time to sneeze.
I remembered last night that I had left one of my favourite jumpers in the camper van wardrobe. This was not exactly a tasteful affair, in fact it was a grey hoodie with a picture of Tigger on it.
I know that this is not very middle class. In fact probably it is a small step away from purchasing a polyester and lace frock with a net petticoat and some plastic diamonds and a picture of Frozen on the front. I would probably have one of those as well if they came in my size and were not so terribly scratchy.
I liked it anyway.
Obviously it had gone.
I felt cross about being deprived of my jumper, and so this morning we went to hunt for it.
We went all over all of the places where we thought our rascals might have left it, and in the end we found it in the woodland where the clothes were all hanging from the trees.
It had been folded up and left hanging over a branch. Apart from smelling dreadful and being wet through, it seemed to be all right.
We found lots of other bits and pieces as well, things that we did not even realise we had lost. I do not know why they took the plasters out of our first aid kit and then left them stuck in a tree in the woods, but they did.
After some soul searching we took a detour as well, around the village to the place where the chap had hidden Mark’s dressing gown, because we thought that we ought to tell the owner of the shed that somebody was using it.
This was not because we wanted to spoil the rascal’s quiet hiding space, but because we realised that he could get quite scary once he was cornered. We had a worrying vision of an old age pensioner accidentally surprising him in the shed and being horribly frightened or knocked over and it all going wrong.
The owner of the shed was not there. We found a neighbour and explained the whole story, concluding with the presence of a stolen dressing gown and a drug taking person in the shed.
The owner of the shed rang us later, and we wished that we hadn’t told him, because he was not an old age pensioner. He was a cross, rude man and he did not believe us. He said curtly that he thought we did not know what we were talking about and hung up.
Some people deserve to have drug takers in their sheds.
After that we went shopping, because of needing tuck and sausages and apple juice for Oliver’s imminent arrival.
I am in such a state of vague disorientation at the moment that I forgot the apple juice anyway, and Mark had to go to Sainsbury’s for it when we got home.
At home there was still lots of washing draped everywhere, a bit like the woods where we had found my jumper, and the camper van needed to be repacked.
All of the beds had to be made. The curtains had to be re-hung, the cushions re-covered, and the towels and cloths put tidily in the cupboards.
When we had finished it was a huge relief.
It is pristine and beautiful again, and full of us.
We will pack it up and go away tonight.
Life is lovely.
