I should not be writing to you.
I should be boiling milk to pasteurise for yoghurt, and baking biscuits. Both of these are things I have not done, and any minute now Mark and Oliver will be back home and I have nothing like finished attending to my day’s responsibilities.
I have done lots of other things instead.
I did not hoover, obviously, because of the absence of hoover. Dear Mum, just to let you know, I do usually remember to clean the filters, because it blows out clouds of dust if I forget. I think probably the central problem is not a want of general maintenance but the fact we have only got the hoover in the first place because Mark discovered it in a skip about six years ago and has been cobbling it back together, sometimes out of bits of other similarly-acquired hoovers, ever since.
This has been fairly effective and has enabled us to invest the money that other people might spend on hoover-related purchases, into school fees, probably all Gordonstoun parents do the same, so all is well that ends well, and we have jolly well had our money’s worth out of it.
Also he has ordered a new motor which has cost us fifteen quid, so probably we are still doing all right.
We are doing less all right than we were, because I have recklessly squandered a small fortune in Asda today, mostly because having so many children has diminished my carefully hoarded store of zombie-apocalypse supplies.
I asked Lucy if she would like to come with me, but she declined and pulled the quilt over her head, so I went by myself.
It was every bit as horrible as it usually is, with the empty shelves that I have come to consider as a fairly normal part of our Brave New World. I had thought I would buy some Easter eggs for the children, but there weren’t any, and I would have liked some drugs for Mark’s sore knee, but the lady in the pharmacy told me cheerfully that they were clean out of paracetamol, ibuprofen and codeine, although she thought they might have a couple of Lem-sips left somewhere.
I mean no Easter eggs at all, not just not the sort that they might like. Not a single Easter egg graced the shelves, even the awful ones that nobody likes, like Maltesers or Milky Bar, you would have thought we had all converted to Passover. Also there was no coconut milk, or vinegar, or custard powder, or dried tomatoes, all of which I use a very lot in making things like biscuits and curries and mayonnaise.
There were lots of things missing, and I sighed philosophically, because it is not worth making a fuss any more, and because the Asda executive who had got in my taxi ages ago had warned me that it would happen, because nowhere can make enough of anything, ever since the Government decided that people cannot work next to one another in factories any more.
I went into Kendal to get some ground coffee.
Whilst I was there I thought I would look in Marks & Spencer to see if they had any jeans that would fit a teenage boy, but they didn’t. They had jogging pants or pyjamas, not in his size, but no jeans at all. The town was silent and deserted, apart from a few weary looking people trudging grimly past the empty shops. Somebody somewhere was shouting, yelling and screaming and sobbing, but I did not find out why.
The coffee shop had coffee this time, unlike my last visit, but no bags, so we squeezed the coffee into several of the wrong sort of bags, and the girl and I smiled philosophically at one another as we said our farewells.
I was unpacking at home when Mark called and said that he and Oliver were fed up of painting the outside of the Barrow house. It is pebbledash, which is dreadful to paint. I could have volunteered to help, but it is so awful that I didn’t.
Mark said that we have got one day of sunshine left before it snows and that we should take the camper van out and go to the seaside.
This cheered me up immensely.
We thought about Blackpool, but then remembered that the Government, which likes to keep busy, has made a law which says that bookshops are not allowed to open in case anybody who likes to read and think about things, goes into one and catches a nasty disease.
We always go to the bookshop in Blackpool, it is one of the loveliest things, and the thought that we might go there and it would be closed and dark just seemed too dreadful to be borne.
We are going to go to Barrow beach instead, which will be bracing in the way of northern coastal towns, but which we will like anyway.
I am beginning to feel a small worm of excitement. I like being in the camper van very much indeed.
You will be very pleased to hear that not a single tuft of dog fur remains on the compost heap. Every last hair has disappeared to make warm nests for baby birds.
I feel pleased every time I walk past it.
Have a picture of a boy.
