So tomorrow we will get the train to London. We will arrive at Waterloo Station and get the Bakerloo line to Marylebone.
The names sound like magical charms, with a little thrill of excitement and adventure whispering in their very syllables.
I have discovered that a popular search is also Tube Stations Kendal, which made me laugh, oh the hopeful misapprehensions of visiting Londoners.
I expect we will be just as rubbish at visiting London.
I am writing from the camper van, on the way down the motorway. We are hardly out of Kendal yet, but I am feeling very excited, the only small blip on the horizon being a mildly troubling new vibration which has begun to concern Mark, but which may just turn out to be one of the camper’s little foibles.
I have been occupying myself planning the journey ahead, which has not really reached the point of being exciting, not yet, because we have got a lot to achieve before the day is over.
We are going first to Lucy’s flat, where we are going to install her new dishwasher. She has bought this with her Christmas money, and I think it is a good idea. In one of her recent emails she told me with some satisfaction that she had tidied her flat and cleared two weeks’ worth of washing dishes.
Lucy will be at work until midnight, after which we will be heading yet further south to camp at Number One Daughter’s house overnight, and then making our way into London on the train tomorrow.
I regret to say that Boris has refused to allow the camper van into London.
We were mostly packed and ready yesterday, with a brief but very horrible interval when the doorbell rang and it was some interfering idiot telling us that there was smoke coming out of the chimney.
Fortunately Mark answered, not me, and so she was not subjected to a volley of bad language. He explained that the purpose of the chimney was to let the smoke out, and that this was all right.
She said that she thought we should call the fire brigade.
Mark looked at the chimney, which was not smoking any more than one might expect when a couple of empty chocolate boxes and some letters from the bank have just been chucked on a fire, and told her, politely, to mind her own business.
I spent the next hour in an agony of worry in case the fire brigade turned up. I am more frightened of the fire brigade than practically anything else in the world, they are a crowd of thugs and bullies with licence to break into your house and smash everything if they like, and I can promise you that they do. You have no right to refuse them entry or to stop them from doing anything that they want, even if your house is not on fire.
Fortunately, fortunately, they did not come, and after a little while I could sigh with relief and get on with my other worries.
We finished work at midnight last night, and rushed around getting the last of the packing done so that we could set off early this morning, which we didn’t. I woke up from another nightmare, this one about trying to get lots of people to run away from a mountain lion cub whose angry mother was approaching at speed with exceedingly uncharitable intent.
It was nice to wake up even if there was a lot that still needed to be done.
By the time I had finished chucking bleach down the sinks and leaving everywhere swept and tidy, it was eleven o’ clock.
We hurled the suitcases into the poor creaking camper van and set off.
We are on the motorway, although it is raining so hard that we can barely see it.
LATER NOTE.
It is now two in the morning, and the day is done. We have driven to Lucy’s, and done some faffing about with the dishwasher. We did not have the right bit to get it properly fitted, but this does not matter because we can do it when we come back.
We are on our way to Charlie’s house. We had a sleep whilst we were waiting for Lucy to come home, and so the journey has not been too horrible.
Tomorrow we will be in London.
What an exciting New Year.
