It is cooler on the taxi rank.
There is a breeze blowing gently over the lake which is wafting the hot air about and mitigating the scorching sunshine.
I think it is wonderful.
We have been doing the week’s washing ever since we came home yesterday, and things are drying in miraculous minutes rather than hours. We have got some of the sheets back on the camper van beds already, and the children have taken their already-freshly-laundered swimming costumes and towels and buzzed off to the bottom end of the lake. They have gone off to swim and presumably dive off the boat with Elspeth’s children. Elspeth has got a boat. I do not know if they have got it out but I think they would be perfectly mental not to.
Poor ginger Lucy is going to be burned until she looks like crispy bacon.
I am not sailing up and down the lake, much as I would prefer it if I was. I am sitting on the taxi rank waiting to extort money from other hot people.
There are a very lot of these.
We are bursting with tourists.
The road that runs along the side of the lake has cars parked on both sides, all the way along. Most of them have got a yellow envelope grimly adorning the windscreen. Even if they all cough up on time and without argument, Cumbria County Council has probably doubled its annual revenue, maybe we will get a reduction in council tax.
Between that and the extensive quantity of washing I have been very fully occupied for the entire day. I had a brief dog-emptying sojourn in the park this morning with half of the Peppers, and even that was a touch over-heated. Pepper and Roger Poopy plunged into the beck, and we envied them.
I have not told you that the Peppers have sold their guest house and are moving away in a couple of weeks. They are going to start off in Scotland and see what adventures beckon them from there.
I think that this sounds like a magnificently thrilling plan, and am mildly envious whenever I think about it. It would be jolly nice to dispense with all responsibility and just buzz off into the sunset with a pocket full of cash.
They are not going to do anything excessively exciting with it. They are going to buy another house and get some more jobs, which is disappointing. I think that in their place I might be contemplating an overland trek through Africa, or an exploration of the Hindu Kush, which is why I never have any money. In fact we did once sell a house and had to sleep in a car park because of not having arranged another one. We had egg and bacon for breakfast in the local supermarket, and thought how exciting it was to be free.
Of course Roger Poopy is going to miss Pepper terribly. She is his best friend in the world, and he adores her. If he has not seen her for a few days he mopes and goes to look for her in the street, in case she might be passing. He will not understand that she is gone for ever, and he is not even on Facebook so that he can catch up with her in occasional quiet moments at work.
She is not quite going for another few weeks, which in some ways is misfortunate, because he might not notice so badly at the moment. This is because his brother Tonka has come to stay with us, whilst Number One Daughter is in the final of the Cross Fit World Championships for very fit people, which is in America.
Because it is in America, and in the middle of the busiest time of the year, and because of the stupid bat flu, of course we can’t go, although I would very much like to watch her competing.
I would also like to go to America, obviously, but we can always watch on the mighty Internet, which broadcasts it all live. We have watched her lots of times in this way, although I am not really sufficiently well informed to understand properly what is going on, and I have to wait for the commentator to tell me who is winning. Inevitably it always looks to me as though everybody is winning, because they are all so startlingly able and energetic.
They are going next week, and I am glad to have the dog, because it feels as though we are contributing a tiny piece of helpfulness towards her success. I felt especially pleased with myself for being so noble and supportive when I tripped over him on the landing this evening, what a valiantly helpful person I must be.
We have got everything crossed for her. I know that she would like to win, but frankly, I think it is enough to be there. I hope she has a brilliant time.
Have a picture of our holidays.
You can tell that we are middle-class sophisticates.
