Lucy goes tomorrow and I have been busy packing.
Obviously she is quite big enough to pack her own things, but she has been busy writing an essay for her university course. Hence, I have been helpfully collecting her things after they have filtered their way through the post-pantomime laundry system, and packing them neatly in her suitcase.
Mark does a great deal of picking up the bits when I am trying to write things for my own course, and it is rather nice to pass it on.
We will not see her again until we go to London in January, that is, if we do go to London in January.
Our beloved leaders are making this a topic for a very great deal of nail-biting at the moment.
Already the paperwork involved is somewhat draconian. In order to attend the production of Cabaret, one must produce not only the ticket, but evidence of immunity to bat flu, and also documentation certifying a recently-performed negative test.
It is beginning to look as though even that will not be sufficient caution for our beloved leaders, and that theatres might be compulsorily closed anyway. Presumably this is in case any triple-vaccinated person, with a negative test result, wearing a mask and gloves, gives bat flu to another vaccinated, negative-tested, thoroughly bagged-up person whom they might pass at a two meter distance in the corridor.
I remember the days when all one had to do was negotiate a favourable rate with one’s credit card company. I thought that was difficult enough, and have allowed myself a hollow laugh at the memory.
I have long been speculating that the Christmas lockdown would arrive on 20th December, and am extremely cross with myself that I did not think to approach Ladbrokes and place a bet.
Lord Frost has resigned in protest. I shall write to him and tell him that there will always be a job here for him driving a taxi if ever he is struggling, all he needs to do is ask.
It is making everything extremely wearisome. The London trip was the children’s Christmas present, as well as our annual holiday and Christmas present to ourselves, and it is beginning to look less and less likely. All of our money is tied up in the gamble that it might come off, all of our smart clothes are being ironed and laid hopefully in the suitcase, and all the while vague threats are being issued in the background of our lives.
I am starting to become terribly anxious. It is not nice to have something that one dare not look forward to for fear that it will be snatched away. If I do get to London and Boris is there I will jolly well tell him what I think about it all.
Lucy has got to work all over Christmas. Number Two Daughter is in Canada, and Number One Daughter is tied up with her own little family, and so Christmas Day itself is going to be very quiet. We are going to go to the Indian restaurant, because I am too idle to bother about peeling carrots and boiling sprouts, and then we will probably just collapse in front of a film.
Lucy is working nights and will get extra money for working antisocial hours and then more extra money for it being Christmas. I think that this sounds ace.
After Christmas we will just try and earn as much cash as we can before the trip to London.
We have got to have the camper van fixed by then.
No pressure, of course.
We are on the taxi rank as I write, although once again it is impossibly quiet, hard to believe that it is the week before Christmas. Not a single Christmas party has yet staggered up the road to lean over the churchyard railings in order to be unwell. From my vantage point in the very centre of town I can see three people, one of whom is a very bored looking doorman, who might be picking his nose. The other two are staff from one of the other pubs, on their way home early.
Oliver has gone off to work as well. I am in favour of this activity, it sharpens his enthusiasm for working hard at school. He and Lucy have been to the sweet shop and purchased some confectionery, for the purposes of rewarding themselves every time they accomplish a period of school work.
I suppose the compensation is that if they are idle, at least they won’t be diabetic, so it will be a positive result either way.
I am going to go and read my book.
There are still no customers.
