I am feeling very pleased with my world.
We have done all manner of useful things. None of them have got us a single step nearer to having a kitchen with water and tiles and electric plug sockets, but tomorrow is another day.
In fact we are not going to improve matters much tomorrow either. It will have to be that the day after tomorrow will be another day.
This morning did not get off to the best start, because we made our coffee and sat in bed, pondering the universe and waiting for the clock to strike eight. This is my cue to leap out of bed, drag my clothes either out of the drawer or off the washing line, depending on how organised I was the day before, and go downstairs to make Oliver’s pre-school breakfast. Chapel is at half past eight, and he needs to be dressed and fed, or at least have a plateful of chocolate spread sandwiches and yoghurt to tide him through The Lord’s My Shepherd.
This morning I had forgotten that we had taken the clock apart, and so obviously it did not strike. It was almost ten past eight when I remembered, and had to dash about in a panic.
We took the clock apart yesterday in order to clean it, and to wonder once again, guiltily, what we ought to do with Mark’s dead father, who was still in his box on the top.
In the end we wiped the dust off him and put him back.
We were moving the clock temporarily. When we have rebuilt the living room it will be somewhere different, and for the time being it needs to be out of the way of paint splashes and being bashed about.
Today I cleaned it.
There were some inside corners that I think may never have been cleaned. I wiped out three-hundred-year-old dust and a couple of spider corpses, and discovered a pocket watch, wrapped in tissue. Mark said that it belonged to some other long-dead relative, and maybe one day we ought to get it fixed.
We considered this. It would be very nice to get it fixed, because of family history and all that sort of thing, but actually it was enormous and weighed about half a pound. Also it does not have sat nav or take photographs or send text messages, and hence we thought that its usefulness was a bit limited.
I wrapped it up again and put it back. It can be forgotten for another ten years.
Once I had finished cleaning it Mark pieced it all back together and re-hung the weights. The weights are really, really heavy. I need both hands to lift them. Then he started the pendulum, and the reassuring tick filled the house again.
Whilst I was cleaning the clock, Mark buzzed off to get the camper van.
We are going to take it on holiday tomorrow.
We are going to go and walk on the beach in Blackpool.
I do not know if you are allowed to stay out overnight, and frankly I really don’t care, but probably we will come home anyway.
The thing was, the last time we used it was when we went to get Oliver from school. We had just finished having Bat Flu, and we were so exhausted from the whole pantomime of rushing up to the frozen North and back, that when we got home, we just unpacked Oliver’s stuff and staggered away.
Usually when we get out of the camper van we scrub it from top to bottom. We bleach the bathroom and the fridge and the sink and wash all of the surfaces and hoover. That way when we come back to it it is sparkling clean and fresh, and we can pretend we are in an exclusive hotel.
It was not nice to remember that we had not done this.
Today was a Day Of Atonement.
We thought that we would make up to the poor camper van for having had to sit there, grubbily forlorn and neglected, for months and months.
Mark fixed all the blocked fuel filters and then washed the outside of the van.
I scrubbed the inside until it looked bright and loved again.
We glued some broken bits back together, and then I repainted some of the pictures on the outside that had become chipped.
We refilled the jelly babies and Mark repainted the fridge shelves. We hoovered and polished.
To my horror I discovered two bags of dirty Gordonstoun laundry shoved to the back of Lucy’s bed.
We must have missed them when we unpacked. It is a jolly good job that we found them, how awful if we had gone back to school and found them somewhere around Glasgow.
I was pleased to discover that they solved an odd sock mystery that had been niggling at me for some months. Also the swimming kit was a good thing to have found. It will probably come clean. I am boiling the towel now as I write.
We are really going to go away in it, tomorrow. I am so very excited I can hardly tell you about it.
It is going to be an Adventure.
