Sloping off

The day has not gone at all according to plan.

It should have been a Tuesday, full of endeavour and general labours intended to bring about solvency and happiness.

What happened was nothing like that at all.

Mark was supposed to be bringing the mighty Internet to the rural communities of Cumbria, except that the equipment necessary to facilitate this activity had not arrived.

When Ted telephoned to see where it was, the chap on the other end mumbled a bit and said it would arrive probably by weekend.

This, of course, meant that Mark could not go to work.

He should have gone to the house in Barrow really, because that needs finishing off very badly, but instead he thought that he would stay at home and do some repairs to my taxi.

Somehow this did not happen.

When we were having our morning coffee, it occurred to us how very lovely our lives  might become if we sloped off in the camper van instead.

We justified this rascally idle whim to ourselves by remembering how many jobs needed doing in the field at the farm, and how much we really ought to go and do those.

It needs a sheep fence putting around the garden. There is no point in planting anything at all whilst there are still sheep rampaging hungrily around, eating absolutely everything in their path.

Mark discovered our bench in bits all over the field the other day. It appeared that one of them had got her head stuck in it, and had charged about bashing it on things until it crumbled to a million firewood splinters.

A fence to keep them out of the garden seemed suddenly very important.

You will not be surprised to hear that somehow getting ourselves organised took most of the day.

I do not know how this happened.

We packed lots of things that we thought would come in useful, like the chainsaw and the axe and the log splitter and boxes full of spanners, and I brought my paints.

Setting off was the most magnificently exciting feeling in the world. It was not at all like taking Oliver back to school. It was like being free of everything. This was not strictly accurate since we have not yet paid the council tax or the school fees and so we are not actually free of anything at all, but it felt like it.

Readers, I felt a lightness of heart that I had forgotten might be possible.

You will not be surprised to learn what happened next.

We chugged up to the top of the field, where we stopped next to the garden and strung a washing line between the camper and the wall, so that our clothes could finish drying. Then Mark built a fire pit and lit a fire, and the dogs charged about snuffling at things and barking, whilst I chopped vegetables and bits of lamb to cook on the top of the fire in the tajine. Mark got his smoky old digger fired up and used his chainsaw to cut a large slice of log to be a doorstep.

It was the happiest thing in the whole world.

Misfortunately it appeared that Marks sister had got people coming to see if they might buy her house, which is in the next field along. We did not know about that and suspect we might not have left them with the best possible impression. I felt mildly guilty about this, but not the sort of guilty where you apologise profusely and send flowers.

The thing was, once we had got the fire going, and walked down to the stream for buckets of water, obviously the next thing was a small celebration.

Fifteen minutes later we were both very giggly.

This did not make achievements more probable.

Mark knocked some fence posts in, and I redid some of the paintings on the side of the van, and we lit a small sociable fire as well, so that the Peppers could come and join us for the evening.

The sun is setting now, and I am writing to you before the Peppers arrive and we have an evening around the fire. I am just about as happy as it is possible for a person to feel.

They are arriving as I write.

Have a picture of a contented person.