Well, after a brief flurry of sociable excitement, once again I am sitting quietly by myself on a dark taxi rank.
I do not mind this, because of the chai, and an interesting biography of Lady Jane Grey. This is very good, but regrettably short.
I am not quite as by myself as I have been previously, because I have got the dogs back. I am pleased that they will protect me from burglars but cross because Rosie has chewed a stick up all over the kitchen floor, into hundreds of tiny foot-impaling splinters. She was not at all repentant about this, probably because she does not have to sweep or saw up any more.
I have not sawn up any firewood today. I sawed a massive pile of it up yesterday, and decided that it would have to do for the weekend, partly because I had got lots of other things to do. Mark had not got round to watering the conservatory, and everything was beginning to look a bit sullen and droopy, and I had got all of my smart Cambridge clothes to iron and put away.
To my irritation, they are not quite as smart any more. I have got ink on one pair of dungarees, bicycle chain oil on another, and it is clearly not good policy to wear one’s nicest shoes on a bicycle, especially in the middle of the night whilst intoxicated. I have got two pairs of nice shoes, and both of them have got bicycle-related scrapes, and this afternoon I was obliged to blow yet another stack of cash on the mighty Internet, purchasing some hole-filler for leather shoes. It is no good for real holes, the sort that all my not-nicest shoes have got, but it is supposed to fill in the tiny, barely-noticeable sort of scuff that nevertheless immediately transforms your smart shoes into scruffy ones. It cost seven quid, so I hope it does a good job.
I am very rubbish at wearing clothes, really it is much safer to stick to the sort that don’t matter.
I ironed them anyway, and scrubbed at the disasters with some indifferent success.
I was overtaken by the unforgiving minute in the end, and had to finish them off today.
Mark came back from Lucy’s last night, because it was Saturday and he needed to work, but promptly buzzed off there again when we got up this morning. We waved at one another on the way past, but that was more or less it.
He has gone to Lucy’s to try and get her car through its MOT, which is due next week. He asked the chap next door to Lucy if he could recommend an MOT garage locally, and the chap instantly endeared himself to me by enquiring whether Mark would prefer a Legit Garage or a Dodgy Garage. Mark, unnecessarily in my opinion, said he would prefer the former, but I suppose it is handy to know that the other sort is available in the event that it fails.
He is hoping to get it done tomorrow, although of course there are no guarantees, and that small difficulty might well carry on for a few days before it is resolved. We have got everything crossed that they can get it done tomorrow, though, because Mark has got to come back tomorrow night, since there is rural broadband on Tuesday.
He is doing rural broadband on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then off to Newcastle to do his Rope Access qualification on Thursday and Friday, which is when I am also heading north, although a couple of hundred miles further, to retrieve Oliver. Of course, only one of us can have the camper van, and I am pleased to be able to report that it is going to be him. I am glad about this, not because I don’t like the camper van, but because the exhaust fell off again the other day, and he most certainly has not had time to replace it. Also the one who gets the camper van also gets the dogs, since they are not exactly assets if one is spending the night in an hotel, which I am.
I have booked myself into a Travelodge.
If I drive like the clappers and get there a bit early I might even get time to write some of my story.
