Something brilliant happened today.
A man came into the centre of Windermere and painted a picture of our camper van.
Obviously he was not just painting the camper van. The camper van is not so lovely as to be featured in other people’s artwork as the star attraction, although we think it is probably one of the most photographed pieces of art in the Lake District. In fact he was painting a picture of the road, and the camper van happened to be parked on it.
We thought it was really jolly good. You can see it on the picture here, although his sky is beautifully blue, and the real sky had clouded over by the time we took the photograph. It is funny how things are in pictures, it makes the real world look magical somehow.
He is a real artist, not one that I had heard of, like Picasso or Beethoven, he is called Ian Layton, so if you have ever bought any of his pictures we have just met him, and he is very nice. He is going to sell this one in the art shop in the village. We probably can’t afford to buy it because pictures cost a very lot of money and we have still got school fees and a clapped-out camper van to run, but he promised that he would put it on Facebook so that we can look at it. I will share the page with you when he does.
He is better at painting than I am, which is probably why he is an artist and I am just a taxi driver, it is a lovely picture.
We were busy fixing the camper van, as you know, and we were very pleased indeed, fancy it being in a picture. It often makes guest appearances on Facebook or in camper van magazines, but it has never been really painted before, except by me, of course.
Mark has fixed the leak in the other side of the roof today. He filled it all with glue and screwed everything back down. Once it was watertight we painted all the wood that was still left with some stuff that we bought at the ironmonger’s which is supposed to make wood get hard again.
I carried on painting the cupboard doors and making the shelves look nice. Today I have stuck some gold on them, and they look brilliant. I had to cover the fridge door in stick-on copper because I had run out of gold, but it looks lovely and does not matter. I will take some pictures when it is all done, it turns out that the combination of pink and turquoise and gold is very nice indeed.
I took the photographs off the bathroom door, because I think I will replace them. There was a splendid one of us all in Blackpool, riding on some ride which must be exciting, because everybody is laughing and waving except me, and I have got my eyes tightly shut and am clinging on like Sellotape to an Amazon parcel. I noticed, with some interest, that although Oliver is very much smaller in the picture, indeed, he is tiny, I was wearing the same dress that I was wearing today, which is the one with the not-faded mended bits. I was pleased to see that actually it has lasted very nicely. It is more robust than it looks, probably one of the children can inherit it when I die.
There is still lots more to do, but we have run out of holiday, and tomorrow Mark has got to go back to work. I can still carry on, but most of what I can do is painting things, because I am not sufficiently trustworthy with a saw.
Mark has had to saw some of the floor out today. This is always a grim moment, most especially because we always look at it and have a happy thrill of horror about how fortunate we have been not to finish up accidentally stepping on it too hard and landing on the road. It is all right again now, and he is bashing it back together as I write this. It is the last job before we give up and start drinking, which is one of the lovely things about having a day off.
In fact I might go and give him a hand. I like the idea of drinking.
PS: Of course I know that Beethoven is not an artist but I could not think of one in a hurry and just wondered if anybody would notice.
