We had a minor domestic this afternoon.
I was cross with Mark.
He had buzzed off with the camper van to fix it at the farm and needed a lift home.
I rushed outside to my taxi, which, you might recall, had last been used to transport some ageing lumps of scrap iron loaded into it by a Darlington gypsy. Mark had had sufficient presence of mind to hoover it out upon its return, but had neglected, I discovered, to wipe the steering wheel.
The steering wheel was coated with a thick layer of rust-dust which had been glued down to it with oil, presumably originating on somebody’s filthy hands.
My hands became black instantly.
My glasses were missing, and the fuel gauge was not only flat to the bottom, but decorated with a flashing red light.
I was not impressed. I drove slowly and carefully over the fell to collect Mark, trying my hardest to use as little of the fuel vapour as possible, and explained my opinions, loudly and clearly, to make sure he understood, which of course he did, not that it will make any difference next time.
I do not know if I mentioned how near we must have been to disaster upon our last journey. You will recall that this had been to return Oliver to school. I had been afflicted with a sense of impending doom at its commencement, and nagged Mark endlessly about whether or not he had remembered to pack the spanners, but the journey had passed pleasantly and entirely without incident, apart from the worrisome noise that only Oliver heard.
When Mark had gone out to the camper van to repair its leaking roof he discovered that it had been very good fortune that we had reached Windermere at all.
Sometime after he had parked it, not only had the suspension collapsed, but a thing called the Torsion Bar had snapped clean in two, leaving the front of the van actually sitting on the wheels, and rendering it completely undriveable.
I thought that the Gods must have very kindly been carrying it for the whole of the journey across Scotland, and lit them a grateful candle.
Mark was obliged to jack the front of the van up and install a temporary torsion bar made of some sort of disposable stick to get him across the the farm, which it did, fortunately, so perhaps the Gods were still helping.
He took the dogs with him, which was brilliant, because I had an afternoon of unadulterated peace in which to write stories and read some of the things I am supposed to be reading for my course. We have got some Very Distinguished Lecturers this term, although I was mildly troubled to realise that one of them is the director of a television series called The Crown, of which we watched the first ten minutes the other day and then dismissed as being poisonous nonsense. We switched it off.
All the same, I am impressed. There is some Radio Four Drama Commissioner turning up, and the chap who wrote the script for the film about Paddington, not the one with the Queen in it but the other one, which is longer, and which I have seen but which was not nearly as good as when the infant class teacher read it to us fifty two years ago. She had many personal flaws and a regrettable fondness for alcohol but her rendition of Paddington has never been bettered in my opinion.
All the same, it is not often you get the chance to tell these people what you think about their output, apart from in the Dear Sir I Am Outraged sort of letter, which they don’t read, and so I am looking forward to it with interest.
An education is a truly marvellous thing and I am so very pleased that I am getting one.
I have got some of the reading-list books with me in the taxi, and I am going to give them a go.
They can’t possibly be duller than the conversation of some of the customers.
