Oliver has come down the stairs filled with excitement.
He has been planning his finances.
It would appear that in a week or two, Roblox is going to be floated on the stock market, and he is intending to invest.
I am always mildly disconcerted to hear about this sort of thing from my children. I am generally fairly ill-informed about the thrilling world of finance. My only connection to this arcane system of magical wealth-production rarely becomes any more involved than opening an occasional grumpy letter from Barclaycard.
Oliver, however, has got some cash in his bank left over from his apprenticing efforts, and thinks that he will invest it.
He has already got one investment account, which he and Lucy manage together, buying shares in things which interest them, and then flogging them off when they think of something more exciting. Tiresomely he is not allowed to take any money out of it until he is eighteen, and so his interest in it is limited.
He wants me to open another account for him that he can use for himself.
For the uninformed, Roblox is a gaming platform. I have said this with all the confidence of a true expert, but actually I am not really sure what a gaming platform actually is, and so I might be making this bit up.
Broadly, it seems to be an online arrangement which enables the manufacturers of computer games to suck money out of the wallets of parents. Children, and indeed adults, go online and play for free, and there are some splendid games, all of which can be enhanced by the purchase of an in-game currency called Robux.
You can spend Robux on all sorts of creatively-imagined junk.
You can purchase the ability for your online character to do a little dance, or wear an interesting hat, or buy a more exciting weapon.
Twenty quid for a digital picture of a hat, I hear you say, what a bargain.
It would appear that they are expanding their operation, presumably any time now you will be able to add a pair of gloves and a scarf.
On reflection I think that Oliver might be right. It might be a very good thing indeed to be sharing in such magnificent cash-producing endeavours.
Certainly it will be better than just contributing to them.
It rained very much today, as you can see from the picture. The Peppers have assured me that some good weather is making its way towards us, albeit rather unhurriedly, and I am looking forward to this. Not only is our current pile of firewood behaving rather like a shop window display of sponges if the shop’s chimney had caught fire and the fire brigade had turned up, but also the recently moved washing line catches on the back door. This means that whenever you step outside it springs back and bounces around, causing a small but business-like cascade of droplets to be shaken all over you.
I have had this surprise several times now, which was especially a nuisance because I kept forgetting about it. I waited until the rain stopped and stepped outside in my shirt sleeves. I became wet to the skin every time.
I can’t reach it to move it without dragging an inside chair outdoors to stand on, which would of course become soaked, and so I will have to ask Mark.
Alternatively I could just ask him if he could pop outside for some firewood, at which point he will find out for himself.
I cut our very first home-grown lemon today.
We are having lemon cake for pudding after dinner.
I can hardly believe how very different it is from the ones that come from Asda in a yellow string bag.
It is brighter, and sweeter, and softer, and the peel is nicer. It is not at all like the waxy ones I have been buying, and is so different in texture and smell that it could almost be a different sort of fruit.
I am sorry to say that there is only one left on the tree, which is still a jolly good effort, because the tree itself, which is supposed to grow to become a metre tall, is still only about eighteen inches above the soil.
I am going to feed it and talk to it nicely and in a few years we will have lemons with everything.
That is a bright prospect for the future.
I am feeling less like a wet day already.
