Having been assured yesterday that God loves me, by the end of today I was inclined to agree that yes, probably he does.
Readers of these pages from last night – and if you are not one then you had probably better use the little arrow and go back so that you can see – will perhaps recall that yesterday I had an upsetting event. An unpleasant nuisance leaned in through the taxi window to be unfriendly and refused to desist until the police had been summoned.
The police, when he arrived, failed to find him. We were resigned to this, expecting that sooner or later a chap like that would probably attract the attention of the police at a later date, and that he could be dealt with, and possibly charged with harassment, then.
I was supposed to go to the police station to make a statement this afternoon.
The copper in question rang me today.
An hour or so after they had failed to find him, he explained, the gentleman had indeed come to their attention.
Someone had given him a jolly good thumping, and he was injured, very sorry for himself, and hoping that the police would pursue and arrest the thumper.
It sounded as though there had been some significant damage.
I do not think that the police had managed to identify the thumper.
The policeman and I marvelled at such fortune, if only the poor chap had been arrested last night when he should have been, he never would have been punched in the face and in need of hospital treatment.
We decided that we would not press charges about the harassment, since, as with all of these things, it was my word against his, but that the policeman would explain the undesirability of such behaviour and possibly highlight the workings of Kharma.
I have laughed about it several times since, whenever I have thought about it, actually. Sometimes the workings of fate are just splendid.
This news improved my day very significantly, and it was a pretty good day to start with.
As you know, it was our Day Off, and we went over to carry on with the camper van project.
Misfortunately, things did not go exactly as planned.
We were very late getting started, because there was some administrative work to be completed first, tiresome details involving PAYE and His Majesty’s army of thugs, and then we had a contemplative time wondering where we ought to invest our pensions.
We were just throwing some porridge into flasks and dashing off when the telephone rang, and it was Elspeth.
Her minibus had failed its MOT and needed some work doing.
Elspeth needs her minibus for running her business.
Mark told her to bring it down to the shed, which she did.
It needed the suspension glueing back together with some new bits, and some welding.
We did not get on with it straight away. We had been imagining all night how the van would look with a window in its hole, and we were not going to abandon that just for an old minibus.
We glued it in, and then Mark drilled some holes and screwed it in as well.
This last was a bit of a wearisome job because we did not have the right size drill bit, but we managed it in the end.
After that we put the minibus in the shed because it was raining and left the camper van in the yard. It has got holes in the roof where the windows once were, and we had to cover them with an enormous plastic sheet.
Then we set to the minibus.
Mark put it on the axle stands and we crawled underneath it.
I cleaned the rust off the chassis whilst Mark made some bits that we could stick on it.
I got very, very rusty. When I got in the shower later, lots of bits had lodged in my underwear, which is not great for comfort.
It took ages, and we did not finish.
I have welded the first bit on, there is one more to go and Mark has not quite finished the suspension yet, so we will have to get up early and get on with it tomorrow.
I could spend ages telling you about welding, but I am not going to, because the day has run out.
I am going to bed now.
I will tell you some more tomorrow.
