It has been jolly cold for August.
My taxi, which is so over-cautious it could get a job at SAGE, keeps flashing up a warning on its little screen, telling me that there might be ice on the roads, and I should take care.
I have ignored it utterly and carried on screeching around at the top speeds that I think the brakes can probably manage, much like I am doing with SAGE really.
We are still in the middle of a happy English holiday.
Not us, obviously, I mean everybody else.
We are rushing about, trying to squeeze as many customers into our socially- lack-of-distanced taxis as we can, and flapping about trying to keep our lives running smoothly until we collapse into bed at night.
This is a bit earlier than usual because there are no nightclubs or places to drink late at night. These days we go to bed at three in the morning instead of five, but it is still a bit inconvenient when you have got lots of things that you would like to do during the day.
We had lots of things that we needed to do today, and sat in bed discussing them over coffee for ages.
After that we assembled in the back alley with the Peppers and took the dogs for an amble around the park until they were empty, the dogs, not the Peppers, obviously.
The dogs did not amble either. They belted about barking and wrestling with one another.
After that we gave in to rascally temptation and loafed around having an idle cup of tea with the Peppers, instead of being properly self-disciplined and getting on with all of the things we should have been doing.
This meant that afterwards the rest of the day passed in a guilty blur of frantic charging about trying to get everything done in not nearly enough time before we had got to go to work.
I am sorry to tell you that I have still not finished sewing name tapes into Oliver’s underwear, and we are leaving tomorrow night.
Because of this fast-approaching deadline, we had to get the camper van cleaned out.
We have not cleaned it for ages and ages. We have hardly used it for ages and ages really, because of tiresome Bat Flu, and also because we have been too busy. We went to York a couple of weeks ago, but mostly the poor camper van has been abandoned at the side of the road, empty and ignored, for ages.
We had not cleaned it since York.
Today I cleaned it.
I scrubbed the fridge and the kitchen and the sink with bleach, so that the camper van would smell as though a virtuous wife lived in it, the sort with the price above rubies, although I go to bed too late to get up before the dawn, especially in August. Then I put fresh sheets on all the beds, and clean towels on the shelves, and refilled the jelly babies.
This made it feel wonderful.
Mark faffed about under the bonnet doing something important to the brakes. I do not know what it was, but when he had finished he said that they would actually really work properly, after all this time. I did not take very much notice because he is always saying that, but he thinks that the new master cylinder will make all the difference.
We might have a camper van that stops.
I would like that, although it will take some of the excitement out of our holidays.
I am absolutely longing for a holiday, although not this one. This one is making me feel secretly sad whenever I think about it, because Oliver is going away again.
He has been at home for almost six months, which is the longest he has been at home since he was eight.
You will not be surprised to hear that he is heartily sick of it and absolutely longing to get back to school. He says it feels the way that an approaching exeat used to feel at school, when there was just another couple of days until going home, and the excitement was almost too much to bear. This is called Gate Fever, and you get it in prison when it is nearly time to be let out.
I regret to say that Mark and I are elderly and dull and are not very exciting company for a teenage boy. We know this because he has explained it.
At least he has been going to work. It would have been ghastly if he had just had to sit around his bedroom since March.
Anyway, he might be looking forward to it, but I feel a bit sad. I will not be sorry to lose his bicycle, which snags on the washing, and I stub my toes on it. Also it will be nice not to have so many sheets to change or dinners to cook or bathrooms to scrub, but it is sad.
Our last little chick is going to buzz off out of the nest.
He is looking very cheerful indeed.
Have a picture of the camper van this afternoon.
