Our holiday has begun.
However, I regret to inform you that we are not in Cambridge at all.
We are in Darlington.
Geographically informed readers might be aware that the two places are in fairly distant locations from one another.
This is not because of some kind of gross navigational incompetence. It is because the camper van diesel tank has developed a leak. Of course this must be replaced without delay. Quite apart from the massive expense of dribbling diesel everywhere we go, we can hardly pop down to my future alma mater and park in its beautiful historic grounds, leaving behind us a huge, vile puddle of noxious chemicals.
We have had a bucket underneath it but this is not terribly practical on the motorway.
Hence as I write these very words to you, we are parked in the rather less beautiful although arguably historic grounds of a Darlington truck-breaker’s scrapyard. Certainly many of the trucks are historic, which is why we are here. One of them had an old fuel tank that it did not need any more, and Mark has extricated it and is busily installing it in the space where our own used to be.
I am sorry to tell you that he is swearing.
Unsurprisingly the new fuel tank is a different shape to the old one, and some modifications are necessary. We might be here for some time. I have never fantasised about holidays in northern scrapyards, possibly unlike Mark, but we are here now and I am making the best of it. Certainly it is very nice indeed to have nothing to do.
I have not had nothing to do for a very long time. We have had a frantic few days of achieving one thing after another. We had to earn some money to pay for fuel, flap about packing and cooking, mostly cooking, and then deliver Oliver to the station off on his own big adventure.
Oliver caught the train to Birmingham, where he met Lucy. Lucy was very conveniently in Birmingham at the time, because of her sergeant getting married this weekend. The police do not do wild and potentially rascally social events on their own patch, to save them the embarrassment of having to be arrested by their own colleagues, whilst dancing in the street without their trousers. She had a happy time getting drunk and dancing her feet into raw, blistered shreds in her high heels. Nobody arrested her and I am pleased to be able to tell you that she woke up in the morning in the place where she expected to find herself, which is always good news. She staggered about yawning for a while, and then ambled off to Birmingham New Street to meet Oliver from the train so they could both go together to Number One Daughter’s house.
Number One Daughter lives in Surrey. They will be staying with her until Tuesday when they fly to Number Two Daughter’s house in Canada.
I have not troubled myself with the details of that part of the journey, which do not need my interference. I checked that Oliver had his passport and that somebody knew what time the flight was, and then waved them goodbye.
Oliver has been told to purchase some new school shoes for himself in Surrey. This is another thing I no longer need to worry about. It is nice when children grow up.
Once we had waved him off at the station we were almost flat with the relief of it. We were supposed to be going back to work to earn ourselves some more money, but it was so hot, and we were so exhausted that we didn’t. We tidied up the post-flapping clutter and threw everything into the camper van.
We went down to see my parents. We were going here because it was my father’s birthday, and we had fully intended to have a jovial launching party to celebrate that and the beginning of our holiday.
It was not to be. That is, the party happened, in a quietly merry sort of way, but the anticipated holiday has, so far, failed to materialise. The discovery of a smelly puddle of diesel has put paid to all that.
Having said that, you will be pleased to hear that I do not mind in the least. I have got plenty of books to read, nothing about which I ought to feel guilty, and sunshine. There is nothing at all to make me unhappy, and I am not.
It is my first holiday in a scrapyard, and I am having a very nice time.
LATER NOTE: It is fixed. Some very nice gypsies have been helpful and friendly, and Mark has bashed and struggled and had a horrible time, but it is working again.
We will be on the road again in no time at all.
