We have got a very lot of Arabs here at the moment.
On enquiry it turns out that they are mostly Saudis, and they are here because the visa restrictions for tourists have been relaxed lately.
I think this is a brilliant idea and would be entirely up for allowing holiday visas for anybody who wants one. You can never have too many people wanting to give you their money.
it is a bit odd to see so many women dressed in black bags, though. I have never quite understood the thinking behind this one, nor why, once you do not absolutely have to, you would continue to wear one, except that I concede it saves a lot of futile attempts to look smart. I am having to control my impulses to harangue them about fighting for equality and rising up from under the patriarchal boot of oppression, but it would be futile in any case since most of them don’t speak English. Several of their husbands have been a bit nonplussed at finding themselves chauffeured by a non-male driver, but mostly have settled to the idea and seem to have decided to treat me as an honorary bloke for the duration. At least one woman, dispatched back to her hotel alone, was utterly thrilled by the idea, and kept saying again and again, in tones of delighted joy: You woman drive! You woman! Well done, well done.
I nodded and smiled, modestly.
Anyway, it is nice to have become suddenly multicultural, not least because they are all dripping in cash, and finding change for fifty pound notes has suddenly become a thing again.
Today the sun is shining, and it is absolutely about time. The second lot of washing is drying in the garden. Oliver has been for a haircut, and I am functioning at something of a low ebb due to an irritating migraine headache. This is not being helped by the brilliant sunshine dancing merrily on the lake, but I am jolly well not going to miss any of it. We have been very short of Vitamin D just lately.
I am sorry to say that our suspicions about Rosie’s Interesting Condition are becoming more and more confirmed as time goes on. My current gloomy expectation is that she will probably have one enormous fat puppy and love it so passionately that its fur will all be licked away by the time we are trying to find it a Loving Forever Home. She is practising on Roger Poopy at the moment, much to his irritation. He has had a neglected youth, and is about as tactile as a basking Great White.
In other news, we have had a tiresome email from British Rail telling us that they have decided to make random and unpredictable changes to their timetable over the next few weeks, and Oliver’s booked journey to Birmingham, being the first leg of his trip to Canada next weekend, might or might not happen after all, please don’t hang up your call is important to us, we will probably let you know if the train decides to show up.
With sublime indifference they have said we can get a different train if there is one, which there might or might not be, and we will all find out next week. Probably.
There is no hellfire too scorching for those responsible. I can only say how very glad I am that we have not yet reached the state of environmentally-virtuous dependence when we might actually be truly at the mercy of public transport networks.
If we need to take him down in the camper van then we can.
I do not think I am inclined to surrender my carbon footprint just yet.
