Lucy has gone.
We have filled her car with cats and luggage and useful things, and she has gone off back for her last months as a policeman in Kettering.
The car-filling was not as simple as it sounds, I can tell you. The luggage was not a problem, not being inclined to leap out again and dart away underneath somebody else’s car. Her bags did not suddenly need a poo nor did they have to be recaptured with the lure of pieces of cheese.
The cats were another thing altogether.
In fact once we had finally shoved them in and slammed the car door, we all went.
Mark’s examinations of Lucy’s car had led to the discovery that whilst the engine and general travelling fitness was of an acceptable standard, two of her tyres had worn down to a state probably not a good idea if one is a police officer, and she needed some new ones.
She did not know where the low-budget dodgy Eastern-European tyre garage was, and in any case they charge more if you are not a familiar taxi driver, so Mark said that he would go with her. She was going to carry on the road south afterwards, so he thought he would follow her in his taxi. I wanted soap powder and dog food from Asda and did not exactly trust Mark to purchase these things without supervision, so in the end we all went.
I went in Lucy’s car, so that I could offer direction and guidance, as a mother should.
The garage is some distance away, a couple of junctions down the motorway.
Lucy drives as if she has got a flashing blue light on the top of her car.
We were followed by Mark, who set off some time after we did but overtook us anyway, and who was driving as if he was being pursued by somebody with a flashing blue light on the top of their car.
Lucy’s cat escaped from the back and clambered over the seats to claw holes in my dress and help me eat cheese on toast, which was an emergency portable breakfast because we had run out of time. She only liked the cheese, I had to chuck the rejected bits of toast out of the window.
I was not entirely sorry when we arrived.
We had to wait some time for the tyre man to finish with his previous customer, and so we had a pleasant sit in the sunshine and contemplated our future.
Lucy likes the look of the house next to the pub that we went to look at some time ago. It is perfectly situated between a doughnut shop and a gym, so I can see the appeal. She observed that she is within cycling distance of the supermarket, the dentist, the doctor, an MOT garage, and the vet.
We considered this but eventually decided that transporting the cats on a bicycle might not be the easiest of operations, so it does not matter about the vet.
All the same, she likes the house. It is an odd, filthy little hovel, with a yellowish square on the brown carpet indicating where the bed once stood, and an unappetising smell.
All the same, we were in agreement that there was nothing much wrong with it that could not be fixed with some manual labour and a skip, and she decided that when she got back home she would call the estate agents again to see how it was going.
Obviously she has not communicated any further information to us, she might never have reached Kettering for all I know, because once she set off down the motorway she simply disappeared in a puff of cat litter and we have heard no more.
I will keep you posted about it when we do, it is all very exciting.
We went to Asda and purchased dog food. We bought the slightly more costly variety in case Rosie does turn out to be in the family way.
After that we went home. Somehow the day had skidded away from us as if it had been mounted on bald tyres, and Mark went off to the taxi rank whilst I made a start on the much-belated housework.
I am at work now.
Perhaps we should start saving up to hire a skip.
