I am on the taxi rank, so I suppose, like last night, it is another roadside post. Actually, now I think about it, almost all of my posts come from some roadside or other, but mostly this one, where I am sitting outside Vinegar Jones Fish And Chip Shop gazing peaceably out at a quiet world. It is not as quiet as I would like it to be, because one of the bars has taken to playing loud music, and I have reached the age where I would prefer to enforce compulsory silence on young people at nights. Also it is very rubbish music, it sounds as though it has been written by Chat GPT.
We were talking about Chat GPT last night. It is very clever. It wrote a story in mere seconds, and although it was not a very good story, it was every bit as good as might be expected if one was writing under difficult circumstances, after a glass of wine, for instance, or if one was misfortunately trapped inside somebody’s telephone. It was a very lot faster than I would have been, presumably it can type with more than two fingers. It is going to take over the world and whilst I am mildly anxious about this, it would have to be pretty dreadful to be making a worse job of it than the current incumbents, so perhaps I will not lose too much sleep over it.
We did not actually lose any sleep, and woke up in Lancaster, as I imagine you can work out, it would have been very peculiar indeed if we had not done since that was where we went to bed. We had a large cup of strong black coffee to counter the effects of the middle-class wine, which helped. After that we set off back to Windermere, via some stops to purchase cheese but to forget lettuce which was tiresome of me.
We were home by the end of the morning. Our house was quiet, because Lucy has buzzed off to get her new uniform fitted for her shiny new job, and then on to a leaving celebration in Kettering for her worn-out old job. She left everywhere beautifully tidy, but the fire had gone out, so she must have been cold, poor Lucy. I had a quiet worry about this but Mark said that she probably managed perfectly well, which of course she did, because she has got an electrical heater in her bedroom for chilly emergencies.
Mark re-lit the fire, and we cleaned the camper van out before settling down with a cup of tea to contemplate the happiness of being back at home. I am very pleased indeed to be back, it is thrilling and exciting to have adventures, but it was lovely to be by our own fire and doing pleasingly domestic things.
In fact once I had tidied up and restored a quiet tranquillity I went upstairs to deal with office things. It was tranquil because Mark took the dogs off to the farm. They were very pleased to see us back, but poor Roger Poopy is suffering from bereavement because Lucy took a suitcase and went away. She has not come back, and he is inconsolable. He is sighing and snuffling dolefully, and has not even been cheered by Rosie’s encouraging attempts to bite his leg pits.
Whilst they were all out of the way I put a couple more pairs of Mark’s trousers on eBay. I had discovered these in the camper van and they are now parcelled up at the bottom of the stairs, awaiting somebody’s second-hand trouser requirement. I have just looked at them on eBay now and already three people have put them on their Watch Lists, hurrah. I hope he does not become unexpectedly thin again in the near future, how upsetting that would be.
I think that is unlikely. We have reached the age where increasing stoutness is the Way Forward from here. We can either learn to like it or spoil all of our dinners with guilt and green vegetables from this point onwards.
What a good job that somebody has invented dungarees.
They are the perfect adornment for an elderly girth.
