We have been out delivering leaflets. This is our Political Bit towards the election.
We think that it is probably important to do this.
Our current MP is a complete twerp, and we are so worried about the possibility of Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister that we have spent practically every cup of coffee for ages coming up with contingency plans.
Actually we think that we will have to emigrate.
Oliver’s boarding school will be closed, and probably turned into a detention centre for political dissidents or something. It is ideally placed for that in the icy wastes of the Scottish wilderness. I don’t expect that you will be able to get into Scotland without a passport by then anyway.
Also we will be broke in any case. Mark earns his living bringing broadband to the distant rural outposts of Cumbria, and he will be unemployed as soon as Mr. Corbyn makes this available for no cost whatsoever to anybody at all, except possibly Google.
I don’t suppose anybody will want it then anyway, because it sounds as though they are going to banish all the interesting bits of the internet to cyber-oblivion. According to the currently uncensored internet, the newly cost-free version might only be allowed to be used for things which nobody will find upsetting and which do not have explicit or otherwise rascally content.
How awful it would be to never have had the Internet, and for it to arrive but with everything dodgy airbrushed out, like being given a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover that has been abridged to be suitable for schools.
Hence we have been delivering a flyer which is trying very hard to persuade everybody else to vote for our farmer chap rather than the incumbent twerp when Election Day comes around.
We read it carefully first in case it said anything troubling, because we would not like to be asking people to vote for anything wicked.
There wasn’t anything wicked, mostly it was a long ramble about hospitals and local well being, and a photograph of him holding a lamb to show that he is of true farming stock and to encourage teenage girls to vote for him. Really he should have a handful of baler twine and half a dozen dogs in the background, fighting and being in love with one another.
There wasn’t anything about parking on pavements or dog poo in the Library Gardens, which seem to be the two main subjects that people in Windermere get upset about. I suppose he wants people to feel that he is on their side even if they are not responsible enough to carry a pocket full of tiresome black plastic bags everywhere. These always finish up in a sodden mass in the bottom of the washing machine and are not my favourite part of pet ownership. Obviously the ones in the washing machine are empty, we do not bring full ones home, but they are still a tiresome nuisance.
It is Mark who leaves them in his pockets. I do not do this.
Once we had approved of the flyer we set off to poke it into people’s letterboxes.
I like doing this.
It was a cold, clear afternoon, with a white-blue sky turning to pink at the edges, and we ambled all around the hidden corners of Windermere.
Lots of houses are holiday houses, you can tell which they are by their pristine doorsteps and traditional Lakeland slate house names stuck next to the front door. Also they are all called dreadful things like Puddleduck Cottage and Peter Rabbit’s Retreat.
The houses that people live in are generally about as scruffy as ours and are not called anything. Ours has still got a sign on the front that says it is called Oak Terrace, which it isn’t, because it was once a guest house.
It was interesting to explore around trim little gardens and neatly kept driveways. My hands itched like mad by the end, because everybody has got a metal letterbox, and I am allergic to anything which has been made out of nickel, but it was worth it all the same. Windermere is full of people who think that pot plants and tidy lawns are important. I think that this is a wonderful thing.
You will not be surprised to hear that nobody came rushing after us to proffer their gratitude for keeping them informed about their political options. Indeed, nobody said anything very much at all, apart from the odd one who expressed a preference not to be told anything about their candidate. We were happy to respect this, because it was getting late.
By the time we came home it was time to be getting ready for work. It is quiet in our house at the moment, because the Mrs. Number Two Daughters have gone off down to see Lucy.
This is because today is Lucy’s birthday, she is nineteen.
I was very glad that they were spending it together. It would have been awful if she had spent her birthday completely by herself.
The Mrs. Number Two Daughters made her a birthday orange chocolate cheesecake. This looked and smelled so marvellous that we were sorry that they were not going to leave any of it at home, but of course you are not allowed to take a couple of slices out of a birthday cake before you give it to somebody, so we just had to resolve to make one of our own one day. The Mrs. Number Two Daughters are brilliant and inspired cooks, we might go and live with them when we get old.
They suggested to Lucy that they spent the afternoon doing some birthday cooking, and between them they made a chicken and ham and leek pie, which you will see in the picture.
They ate the pie, which they all pronounced perfect, and there was plenty left for Lucy to take to work all week.
After that they went to the pub.
It is her birthday, after all.
