It is weekend, and although it is not terribly busy, of course I am sitting hopefully on the taxi rank.
I am on my own, because Mark is entirely engaged with mechanical activities.
We have a house full of Young Things, because Lucy is at home. You might recall that she got in a terrible flap because her car had failed its MOT. The garage chap smirked as garage chaps do at girls, and told her that it would cost nine hundred quid to get it fixed, so she brought it home for Daddy.
You will not be in the least surprised to learn that it did not cost nine hundred quid after all. This is because Daddy provides labour in exchange for the magnificently satisfactory joy of having happy children, as all Daddies do, including my own.
Probably, including a couple of new tyres, it has cost about two hundred quid and a great deal of faffing about. It would be completed by now, except that when they were nailing it back together this afternoon they discovered a collapsed ball joint and of course we couldn’t order another one until everything opens again tomorrow. They are going to finish it in the morning.
You will have noticed that I have said They were nailing it back together. This is because Lucy was volunteered as an apprentice.
On Saturday morning Mark took the car to get some new tyres whilst Lucy and I tidied up and took the dogs for a walk over the fells. When we were all finally reunited, Lucy put on a spare set of oily overalls, and they went through the MOT fail sheet together.
Mark dismantled the front end whilst Lucy replaced the brake callipers and the indicator light bulbs, and together they restored the windscreen wash tube to its original function. I can tell you that she was very pleased with herself, and deservedly so. Then today she cleaned out the back of the car and squirted it with car-perfume whilst Mark replaced a sheared-off bolt on one of the wheels. Apart from the last bit of ball joint it is finished, and they have done a splendid job.
I was very impressed as well, I had imagined she would need to get married before she stopped needing Mark to fix her car, but she has proved me wrong.
You will notice that I did not say We were nailing it back together. Obviously this is because I did not help. I have been being responsible for animal welfare and feeding everybody, although I cheated yesterday. I had just finished making the mayonnaise when to my great satisfaction, Elspeth came to visit, so I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in front of the fire drinking cups of tea whilst in the bleak January afternoon outside, Mark and Lucy bashed away at the car.
I am entirely aware that this was shamefully idle, but I don’t care. There has got to be some benefit from being the person responsible for keeping the loo clean.
Animal welfare has also become a more significant responsibility because of course Lucy comes as a threesome. You will remember that now she is a responsible adult she is accompanied by her two dependent kittens, who are the other Young Things currently in occupancy. They are still kittens despite being almost half a year old now. They are tiny and agile and have no domestic conscience whatsoever. They have been here for two days, during which time they have climbed to the top of the curtains, knocked all the plants off the windowsill and pooed in the flower beds in the conservatory.
They are not allowed on the work surfaces in the kitchen, and are knocked unceremoniously to the floor if they try to gain access, but this does not deter them in the least, and they spend watchful hours crouching on chairs as close as they dare, muscles tensed and tails twitching, waiting for somebody to turn their attention away from a work surface that might just have a momentarily unguarded piece of ham.
It is not as if they are hungry. They have got dishes full of cat food and I am so weak minded when it comes to sharing cheese on toast or slices of sausage that they beg shamelessly and successfully whenever we stop for as much as a cup of tea and a biscuit. They do not drink tea but if they find an unsupervised cup of it next to a chair they will stick their heads in it and sneeze anyway, just to make sure you remember they are there.
They will be going tomorrow. I am looking forward to remembering how peaceful the house is when they are not in it.
For such tiny creatures they have certainly made their mark.
Rosie is coming into season again. She is becoming an exuberant nuisance.
Sometimes being an animal lover is a wearisome business.
