We finished in the camper van just as it was going dark. I emptied the back lockers and Mark dismantled them.
The roof has developed a bit of a leak at the seam, and the woodwork had started to rot. The lockers were black, and lined with cobwebs.
We have been using them as a sort of travelling wine cellar, and indeed they had been stocked by somebody with considerably more cash and taste than we have got. Buried in the bowels of the camper van, actual Champagne, not just Prosecco, rubbed glassy shoulders with Calvados and Beaujolais, and we sighed with happiness at these not-quite-forgotten treasures.
We have bought them at occasional moments of past solvency in order that the camper van would be as lavishly welcoming as a luxurious hotel. This would make sure that we would not feel we were having a low-budget, mean-spirited holiday, no matter how broke we were when we set off.
Of course it did not work like that. As our finances had dwindled, we had become reluctant to drink something that we knew we would never be able to replace, and just hoarded everything instead.
We think now that we might be able to replace them this summer, if the Government persist in behaving as if the entire UK is a branch of the Plymouth Brethren, because people will take their holidays in the Lake District, even if they are sulky and resentful about it.
This will facilitate the purchase of some more middle-class alcohol.
We were pleased at that thought.
Of course we drank some last night, although it was Prosecco, not Champagne. We collapsed in armchairs, suddenly exhausted after the day’s adventures. Neither of us could think creatively about dinner, so we just warmed up some chicken and potatoes that Oliver had not eaten, and opened a celebratory, not-going-to-die-after-all bottle.
We did not mean to drink it all, but we did.
I went back to the camper van this afternoon, when Mark was at work, because I am peeling off the stick-on vinyl that has adorned the shelves and cupboards for the last five years.
This has been irritating for ages. I loved it when I put it on, after which it shrank, leaving great gaps between each strip. In the meantime the edges have become bashed and frayed, and now that Mark is dismantling the cupboards, I thought it might be time to take it down and paint it all instead.
I recalled in the process that the reason the vinyl was there was to hide the assortment of random gubbins that we had used to build the shelves in the first place. All sorts of creatively assembled bits of board seem to have been pressed into service, and the overall effect, without the disguising vinyl, is quite astonishing.
I might need some more vinyl after all, we will have to see.
I was halfway through when a taxi driver banged on the window. He had seen somebody in the camper van, and came to check that I was not a burglar, for which I was very grateful.
He told me that he was not surprised that I was not at work, because he had heard on the taxi-rank grapevine, which is about as reliable a source of information as Facebook, that I was in isolation for bat-flu.
I was surprised to hear this, but was assured that it was true. I had been in contact with a customer who had tested positive, I was told, and the Council had ordered me to retreat to my bedroom and stay there for the next two weeks.
I explained that this was a work of creative fiction, and after some consideration, we worked out that the story probably had its origin in my having told another driver that Oliver had been obliged to have a bat-flu test before he was allowed back to school.
It is my own fault for having had a night off.
