We have had a day off.
We did not go to work because we were Otherwise Engaged.
The sun shone, so of course nobody goes to work if they can possibly slope off, and we were building the camper van.
We have been longing to do this for ages, but other, less happy responsibilities, like cooking and cleaning and sawing firewood, have stepped into our path.
Today the path was clear, except for going to work, obviously, so we ditched that idea.
We did not exactly set off early. In fact, after having worked late last night, and not quite managed enough sleep over the bank holiday, we did not wake up this morning until half past eleven.
Worse still, we did not get up even then. We loafed about in bed drinking cups of coffee and talking about all of the things we would be doing if only we were less idle, until finally guilt overtook us and we knew that the time had come when we actually had to be less idle, so we got up.
We had to leave poor Guffy behind at home. We considered taking her with us, but she is not sufficiently socialised to know her name and come when we are yelling it, and we did not want to risk losing her in some gloomy, rat-infested crack of the workshop, and so she stayed here.
The vet said that she had not got to go outdoors for a month anyway, but vets always say things like that, like doctors telling you that you should only drink two glasses of wine every week, even though you know perfectly well that they themselves staggered out of the Fizzy Tart at a quarter to one last Thursday and had to be propped up by the doorman.
We took the dogs, and our breakfast porridge in a couple of flasks.
It is ages since we have been to the van, and it was splendid.
Mark showed me the new steps that he has been making, and we tried them for size. They did not go in the hole where they will finally finish up, because we have not quite finished digging it out yet, but they are magnificent steps and you can even walk up and down them, as long as you stick to the side where they have been glued together.
They will be higher up than they look in the photograph, please do not worry that they will bump on the ground.
After that my job of the day was to cut a hole in the side of the van for the living room window.
We have got the living room window, it is the one we have taken out of the back of the van. It says Knitting Network on it, but that will peel off. We have got to cut a hole of exactly the right size and shape and build a frame into which the window can sit.
We measured it carefully. Actually we measured a lot of things. We had taken the plan with us, and we spent ages frowning and making little marks on the walls with a felt pen and then wondering if there would be enough space to walk about.
It will be fine as long as we don’t get any fatter.
I was not cutting through the outside skin of the van, because that needs cutting in a different place to the aluminium frame on the inside, because of the new frame that we will build. I had to use the jiggly tool, which had to work so hard that it got too hot to hold without wearing gloves, and scraped all the glue off the back of them. After that – this was the difficult bit – I had to cut them out without cutting into the aluminium van skin.
We managed this by sliding a saw blade behind them, as you can see from the other picture. This shows a scowling elderly lady in a ridiculous hat with a jiggly tool. The hat was not because I was expecting something to land on my head but because it had an attached set of earmuffs, and the whole lot was so deafeningly loud that my ears are still ringing even now.
I have also got what I think is a full-body case of vibration white finger. I keep rubbing my fingers together just to remind myself of the curious pins-and-needles sensation that is produced. I hope it wears off soon, it is making typing a slightly peculiar experience.
In the end we did it, just as it was going dark. We are going to build the new window frame tomorrow.
We came home to find that Guffy had killed my woolly hat in our absence, and left it in her litter tray.
She must have been missing me.
