I am on the taxi rank, and I am excitedly waiting to finish working.
I won’t finish for ages but I am looking forward to it all the same, because we are going out in the camper van.
This is almost exactly like having another holiday, except that it isn’t, quite, because we will still be at work, only it will be different.
Mark has got a job tomorrow doing some repairs for Elspeth. He promised to do it ages ago but he has not. This is because he did not think that my friend Elspeth was as important as rural broadband.
Elspeth is going to have to start working again soon. Sooner or later, and probably sooner, people will come on holidays again and want to climb up hills and splash about in canoes.
She needs her canoe trailers to be fixed.
She has become important now.
As it happens her trailers are parked at a fairly cheery, and very rural sort of spot just beside the sea, where she has her Outdoor Pursuits centre.
We are going to go there this evening in the camper van. Then tomorrow Mark is going to fix her trailers and I am going to cook his dinner like a Virtuous Wife, and repaint more of the pictures on the camper van.
This is not a very exciting adventure but it feels like one.
Hence I have spent today rushing about packing things and organising dinners for two days. I have watered the conservatory and wound up the grandfather clock, and washed and dried clothes and sheets and towels and everything important. We are going to come home to a splendidly fresh life.
I have even hoovered. The hoover packed up halfway through. I do not know why. I think it might be hinting that it would like to be pensioned off. This is not exactly unreasonable, because it is getting quite elderly. Fortunately Mark found another one in a dustbin last week, so if he can get it to work we will have a spare.
I was dashing round chucking newly-mended underwear in bags when the telephone rang, and it was Oliver.
I was pleased about this. We have not heard from him for ages, and so we knew that he was having a good time. It is only when the children are sad that they ring home a lot. I have learned this over the years and have now become the sort of mother who is happiest when they never ring me at all. That way I know that they are busy with their own lives and do not need either extra cash or extra sympathy.
Indeed this turned out to be a correct theory, because he was not ringing me to make social noises as he is having a jolly good time. He was ringing to make sure that I had signed the consent form for him to go mountain biking.
I have no idea if I have or not. I signed lots and lots of things in the holidays, but could not remember if the mountain biking form was amongst them. Probably I have signed away the deeds to our house, my corpse for the sixth form to use for biology practicals, and a Direct Debit contribution to the Gordonstoun Benevolent Fund every week for the rest of my life.
I told Oliver to ask the master in charge, and then enquired about school. He could not tell me very much because he was getting ready to go kayaking, but thought he would need some new sail boots for going off to sea in a couple of weeks.
Lessons are going all right and they are studying a choreographer with whom he felt he could empathise because he is a straight white male and really odd. I do not think that he empathises because he is odd, but because straight white males are still relatively unusual in the world of ballet. The being odd is just a bonus.
Oliver likes dance and theatre. if it wasn’t for the perpetual unemployment I would be quite pleased if he decided to become a thespian.
LATER NOTE: Oh dear.
I stopped there to go home and pack the camper van.
Elspeth and her husband John came to meet us at the Outdoor Pursuits Centre.
They brought a bottle of wine. We brought one as well.
It is the most glorious cold cleanly clear night. We are beside the sea, and there are bats and seabirds and owls, and pretty much nothing else at all.
There is just us, and two empty bottles, and the beginning of a feeling that will turn out to be regret at having drunk so much.
Have a picture of my walk this morning.
