Well, we are back on the taxi rank, what a sad moment.
It isn’t really sad, just different, and boringly responsible. We are no longer merrily ambling about all over the warmer bits of the world. We are here, in the Lake District, where it is jolly chilly and the washing has not dried.
It has been out on the line for the entire day and is still not dry, although the sun has been shining, occasionally, anyway, and it hasn’t rained even the smallest bit.
I am cross about this, because we really need it to be dry. It is all of the sheets and towels out of the camper van. We are trying to dry them quickly because this is a mere pit stop at home. In a couple of days we will be boarding it yet again, and heading north, this time to collect Oliver and deposit him at school, and so I will need to re-make the beds.
It is our present to ourselves. It will be lovely to slide between fresh sheets when we have worn ourselves out chugging up the endless motorway on the gruelling journey north.
We have left the same present to ourselves in our bedroom at home as well. When we go to bed tonight it will be between line-dried sheets, from before we buzzed off on our travels. This will be a small happiness after a night at work.
We woke up in the field this morning. We had left the door open, and the dogs were already belting around outside. We opened the curtains and sat in bed, looking out of the open window and drinking coffee. This sort of thing does not matter when you are miles away from anywhere. Only one person walked past, but that person turned out to be the taxi inspector exercising his dogs, you couldn’t make this stuff up sometimes. He laughed and waved. We waved back, which seemed to be the only option really.
We did not stay at the farm for very long. It turns out that the newly-installed fuel tank needed some modification. It is very difficult to fill at the moment and keeps bubbling back up the pipe. This means it takes ages to fill, and people queueing behind you at petrol stations start getting impatient and sighing and rolling their eyes, even if you smile and wave apologetically.
Mark thought he could fix it, so we went home and unloaded. We did not unload much, because of going away again on Sunday, but we washed everything and hoovered and cleaned out the fridge and refilled the water. Then we loaded all of Oliver’s things into it ready for going back to school, so I hope nobody steals it.
They can’t steal it really. It will take them ages to work out that you have to turn the engine on using the old bedroom light switch glued to the dashboard. By then they will probably have had second thoughts anyway, especially when they notice the nylon leopard skin seats.
Then I stayed at home and reorganised our lives so that we could live in a house again, whilst Mark went and crawled about in the road underneath the fuel tank.
He has fixed it, he thinks, which will be good, he needed to make a new bit of camper van to do it, but he is always doing that. I expect it will be just fine.
I give you advance notice now that I am not likely to be writing very much in these pages over the next few days. Quite apart from it being weekend, and hence full of taxis, it is bank holiday weekend, which we are hoping will be busy, and in between times we will be packing and flapping.
If I have any time left at all then I want to use it for writing my story.
I will see you soon. Watch this space.
