We have had a day at home, and the sun has shone.
Both of these things were splendid.
We took the dogs for a walk up to the park, where we discovered that it was the inaugural event for the new skate park.
The new skate park is basically a collection of hills and troughs which have been covered with tarmac in order to create an environment of lethal danger for small unsteady children on bicycles, which of course they all love. There are warning signs all over the place forbidding anybody from using it if their attire does not include a suit of armour.
I am depressed to notice that even the teenagers who slope around there in the evenings are sensibly heeding this rule, alas that young people have come to this pass. Not a single Windermere youth appears to be a reckless daredevil indifferent to the pointless dictates of their elders, which is presumably why there have not been any dead ones for ages.
Anyway, the new skate park has been the brainchild of our local councillor, who is not part of the band of rascals responsible for the taxi-fare crisis, those are civil servants, and whom I think should perhaps consider running for Prime Minister because he seems to be every bit as organised as Boris, and the skate park is absolutely brilliant. Today he even managed to book some decent weather for the event, which takes some doing because so far the council have ignored all my requests, and the park was packed.
He waved and came over to chat. We admired it all, and he told us that it had been difficult to get permission for it. There had been some vociferous objections that it would encourage children and young people to come into the park, which would ruin its atmosphere of rural ambiance and tranquillity.
Absolutely. You can jolly well do without children playing and making a racket in parks. This is the Lake District, for goodness’ sake.
Roger Poopy had brought his ball. This is not remarkable because he has brought it absolutely everywhere for the last twenty four hours. It was in his bed last night and on our bed this morning. His father thought he might steal it last night.
I had some sympathy with this. Roger Poopy always leaps on to their cushions first at bed-time, because his father waits, loyally, and in a trip-hazard sort of manner, outside the bathroom door for me to finish in the shower. When we finally go into the bedroom he always discovers that Roger Poopy has positioned himself in the dip between their two cushions in order to attempt to spread himself out over both of them and thus banish his father to the floor. His father is always dumbfounded by this, and if I did not drag Roger Poopy off, would probably stand and glare at him all night.
Last night he saw a means of revenge, and instead of trying to levitate Roger Poopy by the power of his will alone, he simply tried to pick up the ball and slope off with it.
He could not manage this because his jaws will not open sufficiently wide, but he had a good go, and Roger Poopy jumped up in an immediate growling panic whilst his father settled himself comfortably on to the now-vacant cushion.
This morning Roger Poopy carried his ball all the way to the park, and immediately forgot about it in the excitement of deciding to have a poo in the middle of a party at a children’s playground.
If there is something brainlessly tactless to be done, you can rely on Roger Poopy.
We retrieved both the ball and the poo, and he cavorted about the park for a while whilst we enjoyed the sunshine and thought smugly how lovely it is to live in the Lake District.
When we came back from the park, which was full of local faces and people we could chat to, I went off into the village which was full of visitors, none of whom I knew.
The visitors had obviously all read the same Dress Code For The Country manual, and they were all wearing Hunter wellies despite the absence of mud in Sainsbury’s, and Barbour jackets, despite the warm sunshine. The ones from London were wearing scarves and woolly hats with pom-poms as well.
I was very pleased to see them. We have had hardly any tourists at all since the floods, and we could do with some London cash.
With any luck they will all want a taxi tonight.
