We had such a brilliant evening.
It was our last night all together and we wanted to do something splendid.
Being the sort of family that likes dull things, what we did was had a curry for dinner and then watched not one, but two films.
We have not spent such a long time on the sofa for ages.
It was not actually a very long time on the sofa because it is not big enough for all of us and we had to take turns. When it was not your turn you had to sit on the dining chairs. This did not matter very much because the dining chairs are comfortable if you put your feet on the table. This is all right as long as you are careful about cups of tea and glasses of wine and chocolate and grapes, which are all important accessories for a decadent night in.
We watched two very troubling films from my Amazon watchlist. Mark said afterwards that probably I should not be allowed to choose films in future and we ought to have watched Shrek instead.
Nobody wanted to watch Shrek. When Lucy was little she watched it endlessly and could recite the entire dialogue flawlessly. We have still not quite got over it even though she is nineteen now.
We watched a film about a little Indian boy who got lost on a train and spirited away from his family, after which he finished up being a begging waif on the streets of Calcutta. Eventually he was adopted by some Australians and went back to try and find his family again.
This cured me of wanting to visit India. Obviously we have been to India, and I have always had a vague feeling that I might like to go back, but probably I think I would have more fun in Paris or even Edinburgh, because the whole film just reminded me of endless upset stomachs and digestive misfortunes. It was not about digestive misfortune, indeed, it was not mentioned, but it was an extraordinarily sad and evocative film, and for me, images of the vast and mysterious Indian sub-continent are not snow-capped Himalayan mountains nor statues of Hanuman. Mostly they are recollections of the time when we discovered that the toilet in the hotel bathroom just emptied directly out on to the balcony, and of the cottage cheese Korma that looked exactly the same when it reappeared a couple of hours after its consumption.
The second film was about some Jehovah’s Witnesses, and made us all bellow at the screen in appalled horror. I do not think that as a family we have got much sympathy with the agonies of trying to conform to a rigid religious doctrine. We tend to the opinion that probably the Gods are either not there or won’t mind what we get up to, and light the odd candle to try and attract their attention if we need Divine assistance. Sometimes this is forthcoming, but more likely it is my parents who cough up.
Anyway, it was an ace time. We ate chocolates and argued with the people in the film, and decided afterwards that we were glad we had not been born either Indians or Jehovah’s Witnesses, and went to bed feeling pleased with our world.
Today, after all that, did not go according to plan.
Lucy was setting off on the long journey back south this morning, and lugged her massive suitcases down the stairs.
This should have been fine, except that Mark had been fixing her car, which had some sort of problem with the fan belt.
It was all done and ready to go when he realised that there was unexpected water leaking out of it.
Investigation revealed that the water pump was spraying water everywhere.
He ordered a new one from Autoparts and set about taking the engine to bits.
It took all day.
In the end of course there was no chance that Lucy was going to be able to drive it today, and so she has had to resign herself to another last night in her old bed.
Mark was still fixing the car until we came out to work. Indeed, he was late for work, and he hasn’t finished it yet.
I took the Christmas tree down. You can just see it in the picture. It is in the big box next to the fire. It is cut into pieces and is being fed into the central heating, a bit at a time.
It feels very nice indeed to have a tidy house again.
