Today we have been to the tip.
We learned at university that it is important to start a piece of writing with the most gripping sentence that you can think of, usually a murder if you have done one. I have not done any murders today, have not even been tempted, which is always a good day, so I am afraid you will have to make do with the next most thrilling thing, which was the trip to the tip.
Mark went to the tip twice, actually, once to take some rubbish for the lodger, in exchange for her having kindly looked after Roger and Rosie whilst we were in Manchester, and once with me. Both times he took lots of his own clutter, and we stopped by his uncle’s scrap yard as well.
The yard is looking very much tidier. I am feeling happier about it.
It is actually possible to go into the spare garden shed now. There is a loo in there but it is not yet wired into the drains. The drain is there and ready, and one day soon we will have outside bathroom facilities.
I am aware that this does not exactly sound like a step up in the world, but it is really. There are two reasons for this. The first is that when we empty the loo from the camper van we will not have to carry it all the way through the house and risk a misfortune on the nice carpets. We will just be able to swill it out in the outside loo. The second is that when we are at work and need to stop for what the Americans call a Comfort Break, we can just dive into the back garden instead of all the way into the house and up the stairs, making the dogs jump about and leaving a trail of wet footprints.
Mark has his comfort breaks in the garden anyway. It is very good to wee on a compost heap. I am hoping to dig this out tomorrow, if I get round to it, because the conservatory needs new soil, and the compost heap is looking splendid at the moment, with lots of worms.
I told you that going to the tip was the most exciting bit.
I have just answered the telephone to somebody from that very university.
Did I mention that I am doing a Master’s’s’ degree at Cambridge University? Well, I am, and they have just telephoned me, wanting to know about whether or not I thought my life had turned out to be satisfactory and meaningful since I completed my undergraduate qualification a year or so ago.
I am not joking. I had to tell them, using a scale of one to ten, first how satisfactory, and then how meaningful, I considered my life to have been.
I told them nine, but that was because we have got a tidy yard now. It might only have been eight before then. I explained about the yard and the lady seemed a little silent for a moment, and then hastened to the next question, which was about whether nor not I felt my life was reflecting my dreams. I can tell you now that it isn’t, since I have some fairly exciting and troubling dreams, although quite of a few of them feature staying in nice hotels, so I suppose it could be said that they get close occasionally.
Lucy is in the throes of her house-purchasing adventures now. She has been finding a solicitor. The rapacious villainy of internet solicitors is a new experience for her, since her only experience of solicitors so far is of the slightly weary and down-at-heel chaps who turn up in the cells in the middle of the night and say Just Tell Them No Comment to the rascals detained therein.
She has given up on the mighty Internet and is going to find a chap in an office.
It is a very exciting time.
She is going to be a homeowner.
Mark has said that he will go and tidy her yard as well.
