I am sitting on an uneventful taxi rank. I have been to the gym.
I am thoroughly exercised and scrubbed and invigorated, and now I am full of tea and dinner as well. It is a most contented feeling.
I have eaten sandwiches of home made peanut butter on home made bread, and hence am feeling self-satisfied into the bargain. I have got an all-in-one drink and pudding, which I made in the magnificent new Kenwood this afternoon. It is coconut milk blended with pineapple, and some ginger yoghurt chucked in for good measure.
I am pretending that it is pina colada, which is my favourite cocktail, even though it is terribly unsophisticated. When I order it in hotels, I have to pretend that I am a very sophisticated person who can order the unsophisticated thing because they are so very sophisticated that they don’t care.
It is just as good as pina colada, apart from not having rum. You can’t drink rum in a taxi, even on uneventful nights. The council would not be pleased.
We have not had a very eventful day really. Mark is not very well. He has got a cough and a sore throat, and is getting tired quickly.
Fortunately, apart from bringing in some firewood, there was not much that needed to be done anyway. Mark was just cutting the last bits up when the lodger’s brother popped round again, to have a cup of tea and chat.
It was interesting to talk to him. He has got the thing that is called ADHD. This makes you restless and waggy.
I don’t think that ADHD is a very nice name, it sounds as you are a dry cleaner’s. I know lots of people who have this, and have come to think of it as the adventurers’ gene. It seems to make people able to launch themselves into the most thrilling adventures with the most wonderful reckless courage.
They don’t find it very easy to sit quietly and learn geography, but they are the explorers, the curious, the ones who rush off to go rafting down African rapids whilst the rest of us are carefully planning a day trip to look round Castle Howard with a picnic. I am very glad I don’t have to teach a class of children who have it, but it is splendid to sit back and read about their activities when they have grown up.
The lodger’s brother has got lots of gypsies in his family, which is probably where he got his adventurers’ gene, and has got a horse. It is a large shire horse with heavy, feathery hooves. He did not bring it with him.
I would have liked it if he had. I have never outgrown wanting a pony. Maybe one day when I am old.
The only other thing of note that I did today was faff about sorting lots of documents out for Lucy to help her join the police.
The police want to know all sorts of things, not just when you were born, but when all of your family were born, and who they all are.
There were lots of difficult things to explain, like Oliver being an immigrant, and Number Two Daughter having no fixed abode, albeit an international one. It also turned out that Lucy did not know our telephone number, and her new driving licence has not turned up yet, so I had to hunt out lots of documents proving that she lives here. She does not get utility bills in her name, imagine the freedom of that, so it is more complicated than you might think.
In the end I remembered that she has got her door supervisor’s licence, and so copied all of that stuff, and it was done, but it turns out to be harder than you might think to join the police. Don’t bother trying if you haven’t got a photocopier.
I have reached the end of my concentration span and my evening. I am going to give up and try and persuade Mark that it is time to give up and go home to bed.
Have a picture of Lucy.
