You might have problems seeing this because I am in between web hosts.
I don’t know exactly how this will work or even if you can read any of it at all. I am trying to facilitate a change which has turned out to be Very Complicated Indeed.
I will not talk about it here, not least because I have had two gin and tonics, and am intoxicated. In order for you to understand this I should explain that the gin and tonics were rather larger than the measure one might get in a pub, indeed, if you were to have used our gin glasses as receptacles for serving puddings you could easily have had room in each one for an Eton Mess and a slice or two of Honeycomb Cheesecake, and probably squeezed in some Cartmel Sticky Toffee Pudding on the top, with custard if, like Mark, you like that better than ice cream.
We did not have any of those things but we did eat an awful lot of chocolate.
We have had a Night Off.
This was debauched and louche and wonderful. We did not go to work at all, apart from taking pity on some regular customers who telephoned, rather plaintively, from the pub. We were on our way home, so we went to pick them up, with the dogs still in the boot, but they were very grateful anyway because nobody else seemed to be sitting on the taxi rank, even though Zsolt had promised that he would.
We have been at the camper van.
I almost said ‘been at the camper van all day’, but since we did not actually get up until half past eleven that would have been a fib. Actually we have been at the camper van since lunchtime, and rather a late lunch at that.
Mark is engaged in moving the door. At the moment this is mostly expanding the hole where the door once was. This is quite complicated, because the whole of the van is upstairs. You can’t just walk into it from the road. The inside floor is easily at waist height, so you have got to climb up, or stand underneath and whimper if you are Rosie.
It is an upstairs van for which we have not yet got round to building the stairs, so some occasional athleticism is necessary. Also the relocation of the door has meant that Mark has needed to cut a hole in the floor. This will give him a space in which he can build the steps.
There is an irritating gutter above the old door on the outside. This was very useful for the old door but now it is in the wrong place and is going to have to be sawn out. This is more complicated than it sounds because it is a part of a stick-on panel which goes all the way up to the roof, and I am very glad that it is Mark’s problem and not mine.
I did not participate in door sawings. I was taking apart the cupboards above the cab.
These have got to go because they are rattly and hideous, because the roof above them leaks, and also because they don’t work very well anyway.
They were screwed in and bolted in and there was some glue involved.
Also there was about twenty miles of wiring, all carefully twisted together in ducting and zip-tied in to the backs of the cupboards.
It all had to come out.
By the time I had finished, and I hadn’t finished, just given up, I could have cheerfully strangled the original electrician with one of his own stupid zip ties.
They were tightly wrapped and screwed down, and they were very horrible to get out. I took out the junction box and the inverter switch and a couple of miles of cables, but there are still more to go before the last cupboard can finally be rattled free.
It was dark by the time we finished, and we came home to eat shepherds’ pie and to watch rubbish on Netflix. We watched two things and by the time they had finished I was very relieved that I live here in the Lake District and not in London or anywhere exciting. In my opinion, every single character in both stories really belonged in prison, and some of them merited bringing back the ducking stool and the stocks.
They were not crime dramas, just stories of everyday life.
I am sure they were just stories. The world can’t possibly be as rascally as all that. I would have noticed.
The gin was good, though.
