It might still all go wrong.
I am writing to you from the front of the camper van. It is one o’ clock in the morning, and we are almost in Scotland.
I am finding it difficult to write. This is because Roger Poopy is having an insecurity moment and is insisting on resting his chin on my knee. In consequence there is not very much room for a computer. I have shoved him off a couple of times, but he is determined, or perhaps just more insecure than usual. I think this may have been brought on by a great deal of flappy packing, and holiday arrangements which he was not sure would include him. In the end I have just given up. There are dog whiskers all over the keyboard and a sticky patch where he has sneezed. I am just having to make the best of it.
We have spent the whole day rushing about trying to get ready. Mark has installed headlights and fixed the gas fire in the camper van. I have cleaned the whole house and washed the curtains.
This is because we want to come back and feel happy to be back at home and pleased with our lovely world. I do not think I would like to come back to a house which smelled of dogs, and which had grubby fingerprints all over the mirrors and black mould growing up behind the curtains, even though I have been living in one without complaint for weeks now.
Coming back to it is a different thing altogether.
I do not know how we managed to be still trying to fix these problems at almost eleven o’ clock at night, but we were.
It does not matter. We have set off now. We have got a lovely clean house to come home to, and a camper van which is bursting at the seams with every jersey I could and lots of thermal underwear.
We are in Scotland now. Just so you know.
Mark has installed some new speakers in the cab. They are not very new, he has had them in a box at the back of his shed for at least the last ten years, but they are a new addition to the cab of the camper van, and they are very brilliant indeed.
The old speakers are down on the floor by our feet, which is not exactly conveniently close to my ears, and since I am starting to get a bit elderly I do not hear as well as I once did. Hence most journeys have involved a great deal of intense scowling concentration whilst I have tried to work out what the story is going on about. Today that difficulty is over. We have got splendid new speakers for our holiday, and every word is crystal clear
That is if we actually go on holiday. I am trying not to think about it, but it could all go wrong even now.
We have had a message from the ferry company telling us that due to ghastly weather all sailings to the Orkneys are being reviewed.
This means that they might change their minds about going.
I am quite sure that it will be all right, and they will not need to cancel our boat. I have not got a candle to light, and I can’t even cross my fingers, because it makes typing even harder than trying to do it around Roger Poopy’s nose, but I am sure it will be fine.
It will be fine. Of course it will.
Mark is very sanguine about it. He says that being stuck in the dock is better than being shipwrecked, and I am quite sure that he is right. I do not at all want to drown in terrible icy waters instead of going on holiday.
Even if we actually get there it is going to be an exciting sort of holiday. The weather forecast is for high winds, and since they have those on Orkney the whole time anyway, it promises to be an exciting sort of holiday. I do not think the camper van will actually blow over, but these things do happen, although not usually to us, mostly because Mark is good at making sure that they don’t.
Mark pointed out today that whenever we tell anybody that we are going to visit the Orkney Islands in January, they all pull the same sort of doubtful looking face, whilst they try and think of something encouraging and cheerful to say about it. One of the other taxi drivers is going to Tenerife. He did not say encouraging things. He just laughed.
I think that Tenerife sounds dull.
We are on our way to Orkney.
We are nearly at Glasgow.
It is an Adventure.
The picture is supposed to make you think of us trundling off into the sunset. I did not take it today. Today the weather has been much worse than that.
