Wet and dry

We have had a small adventure this evening.

It has rained, and rained, and I was chugging through the endless sheets of downpour when a forlorn-looking chap waved to me from the side of the road.

I stopped, and it turned out that he wanted me to collect his wife and son and take them to Kendal.

On the way to pick them up he explained.

They had come to the Lake District for their holidays, and it was their very first day. They had parked their car in the car park and buzzed off to sail blissfully around the lake in a hired boat.

When they got back to their car it would not start.

They rang the AA, who looked at it and told them that it was the alternator. Then they did not have a recovery agreement so the AA shrugged and drove away again, leaving them in a strange car park in the rain, miles from their home and their hotel, with a car that would not go.

They were very upset.

In fact, I might say, they were having something of a domestic dispute.

We loaded the wife and their luggage into my taxi, because they had not yet been to their hotel, which was the Travelodge in Kendal, and I discovered that the chap’s master plan was to ring a tow truck and spend three hundred pounds getting his car towed back to Bradford. After that he would find a garage to fix it, and then hire a car to come back and spend the last few days of their holiday with his wife.

His wife did not think that this was a good idea at all, although I do not think that she had actually come up with anything better. She had a very great deal to say about the time she told him to check the car before they set off, so that nothing would spoil their lovely holiday.

He wanted me to take her to Kendal then, which I thought was probably a good idea under the circumstances, although it did not help much, because once we had set off she telephoned him and carried on telling him about her opinions.

After a little while I started to feel sorry for him, and rang Mark, who went down to visit the chap and his broken car.

Ten minutes later he had started it and taken it back to our house. He told the chap that he would get an alternator in the morning and fix it when he came home from work, and for goodness sake to go and listen to his wife, who was of the opinion that he had not paid any attention to a single word she was saying.

Then he took the now very grateful and somewhat tearful chap to Kendal where I imagine he was reunited with his wife.

I had suggested to her that she should go and collapse in the bar with a glass of wine and not worry about it any more, but she explained that they were Muslims so she couldn’t.

I said that all marriages need wine occasionally and that she could perhaps have a night off from being a Muslim, after which she might not be so cross.

She said that she would think about it.

I hope they are feeling better, imagine trying to be married without alcohol.

Mark says that the alternator will be very easy to change.

In other news, we have got our little chick back in the nest.

She is only home for a few days, and is looking very well and cheerful.

This observation is based on passing glimpses, because actually we have hardly seen her.

We worked late last night, and did not get up until this afternoon, and so on the whole, our evidence for her continued good health is based on a larger-than-usual pile of washing at the bottom of the children’s stairs this morning, and a extra coffee cup in the sink.

It would be in the dishwasher, except we have not bought the new one yet. I have been looking optimistically at dishwashers on the mighty Internet. I definitely think that we will order one soon, except I would like one that can be filled with hot water, direct from a hot water boiler, and we have not quite got this sorted out yet either.

Mark was going to get on with this today, but we were so late to get started, and there were so many other things to do, that we simply did not get round to it.

I do not mean that we did anything exciting. Actually we emptied the dogs, hung up the washing, watered the plants and fed everybody, and indeed, that was pretty much exactly it.

My life has not been terribly thrilling today.

Number Two Daughter rang to ask Mark about a squeak in her car. This suggests a great improvement in her circumstances, because for a long time she has not had the great affluent luxury of being able to worry about a squeak. For the last ten years she has not worried about her car unless it has been sitting at the side of the road, belching smoke from every orifice, with a grim-looking police officer standing next to it.

Things must be getting better.

Number One Daughter rang to tell me that she has not yet quite made up her mind about the Christmas pantomime, because of needing to fit it in around their skiing holiday in January, and the possibility of jetting off for some winter sunshine in December.

She thinks that they will probably join us if they can, but needs a bit more time to consider her options and contemplate her annual leave first.

That suggested that their lives must be looking quite positive as well.

I felt very pleased to think that I had got such successful children.

I have not taken a picture.

Have a picture of a courgette.