I am hastily writing this in the last few minutes before we depart for our trip to the frozen North.
We are going into wildling territory. We are going to Gordonstoun to collect Oliver.
At least, we are when we are finally ready. Actually I had hoped to have set off by lunchtime, but in fact it is going to be long after ten o’clock tonight before we even start shoving things into the camper van, and even then we have forgotten to bath the dogs.
It is too late now.
Talking of the dogs, the picture is of Hidden Treasure, can you spot it? Roger Poopy nurtured this, safe and unopened, in his own bed all night, and then brought it with him when he was allowed on to ours this morning. The story does not have a happy ending. He turned his back on it for a few short moments and his father snaffled it with a single bound, and devoured it, taking care to lick every last scrap of wrapper clean. Unsurprisingly it was almost entirely liquid by then.
Roger Poopy was very sad. I explained that his father had actually saved him from himself, and that chocolate was very bad for him, but it did not seem to cheer him up in the least.
I have been laundering money.
Not in the way of hiding it under the mattress and then putting it in a Swiss bank account in order not to have to pay any tax, although it might have been worth a go. Our tax bill is due in January, which always seems to me to be a brilliant way for any Government to spoil everybody’s Christmas. I am a fervent supporter of Boris, but if Mr. Corbyn had suggested cancelling all of next year’s January tax invoices I might have been tempted. I am surprised that he hasn’t, perhaps he just hasn’t thought of it.
Anyway, I have not been doing that. What I have actually done was washed Mark’s wallet.
This was entirely his own fault for leaving it in his trouser pocket. I do not check his trouser pockets before I shove everything in the washing machine. This is because he is a perfectly functioning adult and I am not his mother. If he leaves his pockets full of screws they will all get stuck in the drum and he will have to fix it. He has learned not to do this.
If I were to empty his pockets on his behalf there would for ever be a little pile of Mark’s irritating stuff next to the washing machine where he had failed to reclaim it. There would be zip ties and rubber gloves and dog poo bags, empty, obviously, and all manner of the rest of the clutter that he seems to feel it is important to lug around with him. I can barely lift his Barbour jacket. When, out of curiosity, I looked in the pockets, I discovered a couple of screwdrivers and an adjustable spanner, as well as at least a pound of plumbing fittings. I do not know why he takes these round the Library Gardens on his dog walk every day, but he does.
Washing his wallet was a tiresome thing to have done, though, because it turned absolutely everything in the wash blue. My vests have become a dismal shade of grey, I hope I don’t get run over, they are awful.
Apart from the washing I have been making mince pies.
This was, as always, a massive project. I made four dozen to eat now, and three dozen to go in the freezer to cook later. I made the first couple of dozen with some mincemeat left over from last year, which turned out to be quite shockingly alcoholic. The fruit has been soaking in the alcohol for several years now, and it had no intention of being cooked out. We were broke at the time, and so I had chucked in a combination of all of the alcohol that we did not especially like. There was some toffee vodka bought on the Christmas markets, and some liqueur that made us both think of cough medicine, and all of the grapes and apples and blackberries left over from making our own fruit flavoured rum.
Blackberries are nice in mince pies, especially ones that have been soaking in rum for a couple of years.
We are taking some with us.
Mark has finished his shower.
We are setting off.
