I think we had better go back to getting up early.
We are fast becoming a cashless society, in the sense that we do not have any left.
We had another lie in this morning, followed by half an hour sitting in bed drinking coffee. This led, inevitably, to spending some more money on the mighty Internet.
By the time we had finished Mark had bought me some scented soap as another birthday present, a bedside lamp for Lucy’s visit in a week or so, some more stick-on flowers for the camper van and a ball for Roger Poopy that lights up in the dark.
We have finally decided to purchase one of these because he desires one very much. Pepper has one, which he envies with his very soul. When the Peppers open their back door he tries to slink in past their legs so that he can dash to Pepper’s toy box and steal hers, hopefully to remove it before anybody notices.
Roger Poopy is a neglected dog. He does not have a toy box.
He does not even have any toys. He has got two tennis balls, both of which he found in the park. One of them has a squeak. He likes them both very much.
We are not the sort of people who purchase toys for their dogs, partly because we have a hearth full of sticks, which serve the purpose perfectly well. Roger Poopy’s father used to have a sock with a knot in it that he liked, but that is it.
This morning I noticed that Roger Poopy had taken his treasured tennis ball to bed with him again, and my flinty heart melted a little. It turned out that special light-up balls were a fiver on Amazon, and a generous drunk chap had given me a fiver for a tip last night, so we bought one.
We were amused and entertained to recollect then that this was timely as it had been Roger Poopy’s birthday yesterday. He is five years old.
We did not remind him about this and probably he has forgotten. It is difficult to tell as he can’t talk, but he did not seem to be any more cross and forlorn than usual. I get very cross indeed when Mark forgets about my birthday, so I expect that he is all right and he has not noticed.
He can have a celebratory bath tomorrow.
The new soap is going to be wonderful. Regular readers will know that wonderfully flavoured soap is one of my best joys in life. Mr. Carter used to sell this sort in the chemist’s shop in Windermere, but he can’t get it any more because the people who make it, who are called Bronnley, will not sell it in small enough numbers for it to be any good to a little chemist next door to the butcher.
I have been buying Yardley’s lavender soap from there as a bit of a stop-gap, but it is no good. It does not smell very lovely, and I do not like it nearly as much as properly nice soap. Penhaligons do not make the soap I liked any more. They have become modern and I have huffily taken my business elsewhere, that will show them.
Mr. Carter does not sell Chanel soap either, which is just as well, because we are a bit too broke for that at the moment.
I hope it turns up soon. It would be nice to have beautiful soap in the camper van next week when we go away to collect Oliver.
Once we had spent all of our cash we had to get up and get on with life.
After we had emptied the dogs and faffed about in the conservatory we made some strawberry fudge for going away in the camper van next week. That is to say, I made strawberry fudge, and Mark came in and stirred it at the end when I had got to the bit that makes your arm ache. I was grateful for this, it is one of the things that makes it nice to be married.
The fudge turned out to be absolutely and utterly perfect, to my great happiness, and Mark and I politely congratulated one another on our cleverness with confectionery.
It is the start of some joyous travelling preparations. The camper van is finished and ready to be repacked.
More pictures to follow, because I haven’t taken any.
Have another picture of the conservatory.
