Socialism

Goodness me, life has become exciting.

The sun is shining, the world is suddenly full of people, it is double time in a taxi and everybody is having such a lovely time that they are all telling me to Keep The Change, so I have done.

What is more, our horizons have suddenly become broader. We have been invited to attend not just one exciting event this summer, but two.

I sometimes read the newspaper whilst eating breakfast, and this morning I thought, with a mild feeling of regret, that the summer-wedding outfits displayed on the fashion pages would not be of very much use to me because I hadn’t been invited to a wedding for as long as I could remember.

I rather think the last one might have been Number One Daughter.

That was some considerable time ago.

I contemplated the dullness of not wearing a summer dress for a little while, and then forgot all about it, but the kindly Fix Everything Gods must have been listening, because not four hours later I was clutching an invitation in my hand to a summer wedding.

Some of our neighbours are getting married and we are going to go.

We actually can go, because it is not on a Saturday but a week night, which we thought was profoundly fortunate. Everybody else gets married on Saturdays and so we can never go because we can’t ever afford a night off work.

This was magnificent good fortune.

I am going to wear a summer dress and dance until Mark’s knees pack up, which probably won’t take very long, but it is a bright spot on the horizon all the same.

I had barely put the envelope in the dustbin when the computer dinged and to my astonishment, the incoming mail was not yet another infuriating invitation to purchase peace of mind for so much money it would keep anybody awake at night. It was yet another genuine invitation.

This one was to a book launching party, in June, in London. It is a book of stories about Japan, written by one of our lecturers.

I want to go to that very much as well.

We can take the camper van to London because it is so old it is exempt from the expensive emission zone, presumably the mayor thinks that people who are so broke they have to drive a forty year old vehicle really couldn’t afford to pay it, and actually in our case he would be right.

We would have to go in the camper van because we have got to collect Oliver from school the very next day. London is a long way from Gordonstoun but I am sure we will work something out, and this one isn’t on a Saturday either.

We are practically becoming socialists.

In other news, I have cleaned my taxi ready for the bank holiday. This is a happy feeling. The cupboards are full, the house is tidy, I have got a clean taxi, some knitting and a good book. A person could want for no more. Even better, I took the dogs out for a walk over the fell this morning, which was just brilliant. The larks were singing in the sunshine.

I have not been able to take the dogs out for ages, because the visiting dog has to go on a lead and I have no intention of doing that all the way over the fells. This morning Mark took them for a quick trot round the Library Gardens before he went to work, and so later on I could leave the visiting dog to sleep in the sunshine in the conservatory and take our own two villains. However there are signs of improvement there as well. We have been practising in the alley and he has started to come back when I call him. He is a bit deaf, so sometimes I have got to jump up and down to attract his attention, but he has started to know his name and he ambles in my direction when I yell it at the top of my voice.

He has started accepting nice things from us as well. You might remember that when I offered him a chocolate button last week he bit me. He is still a bit worried about things in our hands, but if we put them under his nose he will eat them. Last week he would not touch anything we gave him at all, and Rosie snaffled it all.

Things are thoroughly looking up in that department. If he carries on improving I might not even need the lead for very much longer, and then he can come on proper walks.

I am feeling so very pleased about him.

He might be a Good Dog after all.