It has been a busy week.
It has been so busy that when it came to putting my boots on to go to work this evening, I realised that I was looking forward to the moment because of the opportunity to sit down.
We have got to set off for Gordonstoun tomorrow night after work. I am not looking forward to this. We were going to get ready for it by sleeping for as long as we possibly could tomorrow morning, but it turns out that Mark’s mother has come up to the village to visit some friends of hers, and we thought she might like to call in and say hello to Oliver before he goes, so we are going to get up after all, and try and squeeze a bonus sleep into the afternoon. I think Oliver saw her in the summer but he has become considerably taller since then, so he will have another of those gosh-haven’t-you-grown moments that he has to be polite about every time he meets any relative at any time, including me.
I say it every time we collect him from school.
I have been rushing about today trying to make sure that all loose ends have been properly knotted up before we go. The water pump in the camper has had to be replaced, because some technical bit of it had cracked. We thought this might be due to frosts, but when Mark investigated, he said it was just old age, because it is as old as the van. This made it forty one, almost forty two now, and so we supposed a decent burial in the dustbin was hardly going to be a shocking bereavement. We have bought another one, which is not quite fitted yet, but of course Mark made a huge mess taking the old one out and doing things to the brakes, so today I went out to the van to tidy it all up.
It is so nice to be in the camper van. I only need to step through the door for the urge to run away to blossom and spread like spilled wine on a piece of kitchen roll.
I did not run away. I swept and polished and removed muddy boot prints and oily finger prints, which tend to be the legacy of Mark going anywhere, it is a good job he has never taken an interest in being a criminal, you would not even need to trouble the forensic team in order to catch him. The police station cleaner would probably be able to make an identification without much difficulty.
It was pristine and beautiful when I had finished, I expect it will stay that way until he goes back in there tomorrow to connect the new water pump.
I took the dogs out over the fell, although they have not exactly been short of exercise lately, thanks to their recent spell of passion. I have been trying to think about my assignment. I have got to write a play during the next fortnight, and I am considering subjects which will make me not bored, like murderers or God turning up unexpectedly. I thought of both of these with some excitement, and then remembered that I had done them both already, maybe I am just a person without any ideas.
That is not true really. On the way around the fells I had loads of ideas but nothing that I wanted to write a play about. I think this marks a difference between me and the teaching staff at Cambridge. They like their scripts to be powerful and moving and full of political analysis. I like there to be a dame and a bad chap at whom we can boo loudly.
Perhaps I should write one of those.
That might be a good idea.
I think I can safely say that it would be a first, in the originality stakes if not the marking.
I will have to think about it a bit more.
