Hello, just a quick note even though it is Saturday.
After all of the excitement of the last few weeks, things are starting to become merry in the Ibbetson household. Indeed, we are feeling very pleased indeed with our little world. The Christmas lights are on, and we are listening to Trinity College singing carols in the background, which is ace. I don’t know if I mentioned it but I am at Cambridge as well, you know.
I won’t be for much longer if I don’t start writing my assignment.
Of course is has snowed. It is still snowing now, on and off, but it made last night very exciting indeed. My last run of the night was to Kendal, but when I dropped them off I picked up another last run. This one was some tragic young ladies wearing only underwear and high heels, who wanted to go up the hill to Kirkbarrow. They had been turned down by half a dozen taxis already, who had informed them that the hill had become so slippery it was impassable.
I am not inclined to give up so easily and in any case we are short of cash, and so I said we would give it a go, which we did.
It was horrid. We skidded and slipped and slithered and slid, but I got them home, and they were so grateful that they cried. Perhaps next time they will consider their sartorial choices a bit more carefully.
Once I had dropped them off I had the new challenge of getting myself home, which was not one I relished at all. The weather had become so superlatively horrible that if there had been any prospect at all of getting a decent night’s sleep in the taxi I would have done that. The road had not been gritted, and it had snowed, and thawed a little, then re-frozen into an ice sheet, then snowed some more, and it was now snowing so hard I could hardly see out of the windscreen.
I rang Mark, who had got back home already, and was emptying the dogs. I told him that I might need either rescuing or burying, depending on the outcome, and set off.
I am writing this, so you know how it turned out, but at the time it was utterly ghastly. The car would not steer in a straight line even on the easy flat bits, and the huge roller-coaster drop and climb just before you get into Windermere was a slithery horror. The wheels spun and the car slid down sideways, but I managed it. I do not know how.
I was shaking when I got home, so hard that I could hardly open the car door, but our finances had been salvaged and we were solvent again, after shelling out hundreds of pounds in fuel for our Arctic extravaganza earlier in the week. We counted our takings and felt very pleased with ourselves.
I spent today doing very nice things. I bottled the apple whisky, which is utterly divine.
I mean really divine, it is a joy, although I must confess that it does look rather like something that you might expect to find in the sort of specimen bottle you give to the doctor.
I saved the apples and have baked them into little pies with almond lids.
They are magnificent, and enough whisky has survived the cooking to give them a very satisfying bite and leave your mouth slightly numb.
We have got loads of the apple stuff left. I did not have time to make more than a couple of dozen pies, it is Saturday after all, but I will get to it, what a pleasure to have those in our future.
Finally, Oliver has gone out to work. He had left his job at the pub, and decided that since he was still not very well, this holiday he would have a few days break before looking for another one, but of course this is Windermere. He mentioned to somebody in the village that he would be looking for work soon, and this morning a text came, inviting him for interview immediately.
He rushed across, and discovered that the interview consisted simply of the question: Are you Oliver? – followed by: Put this apron on, and he has been there ever since. He has been fed dinner and told that probably they will let him out when it goes quiet.
He is in gainful employment, which is what counts, and in a very few minutes time I shall be doing the same.
