Next stop Scotland

We are going tonight after work.

We are not going to go far because Mark has got some plumbing bits that need to be returned to the shop in Kendal, so we are going to go as far as there and sleep in the camper van in their car park.

This is all right because it means that we will be On The Road when we wake up. If we wake up at home we will faff about for absolutely ages before we are ready to set off. I do not know why this happens but it always does. If we are in the camper van we will be chugging up the road within ten minutes of getting out of bed.

This has meant that I have had a very busy day getting ready.

I mean a really busy day. I brought my breakfast on to the taxi rank with me this evening.

I have cooked everything that we are likely to eat whilst we are away, and probably for a couple of days after we come home.

I have cooked three different sorts of sausages and some chicken in barbecue sauce. I have made fruit mousse and chocolate cornflake cakes. I have put prawns to soak in oil with chillis and garlic. I have baked cheese and onion pies and fried sesame prawn toast. I have made chocolate swirl bread and olive-and-tomato swirl bread. I have put salads in boxes and mixed feta cheese in with olives and peppers.

It does not sound like very much when I say it like that. All of the day gone and it did not occupy more than a paragraph.

I did other things as well. Rosie has eaten a tennis ball, only she did not eat it, which Mark said was just as well because of luminous green poo with rubbery bits. Instead she chewed it into bits and spat it out all over the floor. I cleared that up, and also cleared up the wee where she was impossibly excited to see Mark when he arrived home. I also cleared up the other wee that she did when she was upset because everybody shouted afterwards.

It was Roger Poopy’s birthday yesterday, by the way. He is six. We gave him a slice of ham as a present. He does not understand birthdays and so he did not feel hard done by. We gave the other dogs a slice of ham as well, because we do not know when their birthdays are, so they just shared Roger Poopy’s.

I did some sewing as well. You might recall that we bought some summer dresses from York market. Today I altered them to suit my taste rather better.

I sewed a long seam down the front of all of them, because they were all the sort with buttons. I do not mind this but violence is never a million miles away from drunken Saturday nights in the taxi, the customers, that is, not me, and so it is best to be prudent about one’s attire. You shouldn’t wear things round your neck either, but sometimes in the winter I wear a scarf if it is really cold, and make sure it is well tucked in so that nobody can grab it.

After that I cut the sleeves off. They had frilly, dangly sleeves which I knew would drive me absolutely mental, so I cut them off at the elbows, which is exactly where I like my sleeves, and sewed the cut-off bits into pockets.

I do not know why women’s clothes do not come with pockets. It is a total mystery to me. When they do have pockets they are tiny rubbish affairs that will hardly hold a handkerchief.

These dresses now have large capacious pockets which will comfortably hold a mobile phone and some clothes pegs and some dog poo bags and some scissors and some reading glasses. I think this is an immeasurable improvement.

I will wear one when the weather warms up.

It is so cold at the moment that I have put my thermal vest back on.

I am longing for some decent global warming.

Next stop Scotland, after the plumbing shop, that is.

I don’t suppose it will be any warmer there.