All the lights going out

We took Mark’s taxi for its MOT this morning, but misfortunately the garage did not have time to look at it.

They said to bring it back on Monday.

We will be going away on Monday, or maybe even Sunday if we have done everything we would like to do first, so we will just dump it there on Sunday night and it will have to stay there for the next week.

Mark thinks it ought to pass by now, and it jolly well ought to, the tiresome thing. It has had almost nothing the matter with it but endless irritating lights on the dashboard which have needed to be switched off. Mark has got a light switching off machine, but it is not nearly costly enough to work on these lights, which were recalcitrant in the extreme.

In the end he had to take it to a man he knew in Kendal with a top-of-the-range, mega-watt, super-duper light-switcher-offer, and that worked, although regrettably it did not fix the crack in the windscreen, which had to be mended with a new windscreen.

Anyway, the lights are all finally, gloriously out, what a massive relief that is I can hardly tell you. It was all fixed and ready to be inspected, but then the garage was too busy. This was a nuisance because we had got up early on purpose, but these things happen.

Mark was in Kendal by nine, and I was halfway up the fell with the dogs. It is glorious at the moment, and I do not need to sigh heavily whilst I am dragging my boots on. It is warm and fresh and filled with birdsong and the cool scents of the springtime. I went to get Mark from Kendal afterwards, because we left the taxi at the MOT station, hopefully.

Once we were home we had all sorts of things to do. I had wanted to write my story, but of course there was no time. Our Unlimited Ibbets company is now registered with Companies’ House, and I had got to try and open a brand new shiny bank account. I thought this was very exciting, although I couldn’t do it in the end, because Companies’ House has not yet got around to adding our name to the list of people who are allowed to use banks, so it will have to be tomorrow.

After that I went upstairs to clean the children’s rooms. It is a long time since they have been at home and I have been avoiding their bedrooms, but Oliver will be back very soon, and there is no knowing when Lucy might turn up, and so it had to be done.

Bathrooms are not nice when they have been left to go mouldy for a month or so, and I needed a lot of bleach.

In the end it was done, the windows thrown wide for the springtime air to blow in,  their sheets changed and the dust unenthusiastically hoovered away, and we reconvened in the conservatory for a cup of tea. Mark had no longer got a taxi to worry about and so he occupied the remainder of the morning taking mine to bits, it had a new Track Rod End to be inserted where the sun didn’t shine.

I was only vaguely cognisant of the necessity for this, it stopped squeaking ages ago, and Mark said that was because it had worn all of the squeaky bit completely away. I thought this was a good thing, because it had become far less irritating, but he said it was not, and took it to bits.

We discussed our approaching adventures over a cup of tea, and Mark said I needed some new shorts to go to Cambridge. I am currently dressing in the old pairs of dungarees that were too scruffy to be worn even when I am by myself, and so I had saved them for painting. Having now done painting, I have cut the legs off them so that they are shorts, and Mark said I looked like Worzel Gummidge.

I suppose he has got a point.

We looked on the mighty Internet. Shorts are really expensive when they are for women and not men, so I thought I would not bother, but Mark said I was embarrassing and clicked Buy It Now.

I grumbled about it but secretly I am very pleased. I am going to be newly tidy and trim. Well, probably I am not, because they will be so nice that I won’t want to waste them on me, and will have to save them for Best.

They will arrive on Saturday.

I hope they are all right.