Once again, I am in bed somewhere in Scotland.
Tonight we are under some trees in a woodland just by the sea, where we have been walking the dogs along the sandy paths and Rosie has been collecting pine cones, which she has put in special places for bare feet later. It is raining, which is making a lovely pattering noise on the roof. We are not very far from Oliver’s school, and in the morning we will have time to go and wander about on the beach, and perhaps even have a paddle, before we collect him.
Rosie has never been on a beach. She might turn out to be a duffer.
Better drowned etc.
We have not been on any beaches today, although we have had some small bouts of ambling about. You cannot avoid this when you have got dogs with you, because of the regular necessity of emptying them.
In fact, apart from dog-emptying, endless contented travelling, and eating, the only thing we have managed to do today is some shopping.
This was because Mark needed some new trousers. He has become a little stouter in his middle age, which he believes is my fault for repeatedly making biscuits and fudge. This is not true because we both know perfectly well that if I don’t make them then he buys Reduced Price biscuits and fudge in the garage when he stops for fuel. I pretend not to notice this but I do.
He has not become very much noticeably stouter really, but has a hernia somewhere just below his waistline, and this does not feel very pleasant when gripped by slightly-too-tight trousers. Today we were going through Scotland, past the shop in Fife which sells his preferred moleskin trousers, and so we took a small detour to call in.
You can buy trousers on the mighty Internet but under the circumstances we thought it would probably be better to try them on.
Of course we spent more than we intended, because whilst Mark was trying on olive green moleskin trousers I noticed a rather splendid gilet, just perfect for wearing in the taxi, warm and with big pockets, which I liked very much. Then if you bought two pairs of trousers instead of one they were very much cheaper, and so by the time we came out we had blown our entire budget and some of the fuel money as well. I do not know what we are going to do when we are almost at the end of the return journey, although I am sure we will think of something, maybe Oliver can lend us some cash.
We consoled ourselves with the recollection that if we had left it until the autumn probably all of the prices would have gone up and we would not be able to afford trousers at all, so it was a sort of long-term investment really, what a sensible thing to have done.
We trundled along after that, somewhat anxiously because there is no fuel gauge on the camper van, and we thought we might be getting short of diesel. This would have been something of a disaster, since Fife is just about as close to absolutely nowhere at all as it is possible to be, and does not seem to sell fuel anywhere.
Usually we manage the fuel anxiety by knowing that we can drive as far as Perth in one direction without running out, so therefore we can manage as far as Lucy’s in the other direction. You do not need a fuel gauge if you are paying attention, but we had not been and so suffered the consequences.
It does not even have a mileometer so that you know how far you have come and can work the fuel out from that either. You have just got to keep an eye on it all.
Fortunately we guessed right and made it to a petrol station. It cost an absolute fortune, so we must have been pretty close to the end of the tank, the Gods must have been watching over us.
We had not been paying attention because of listening with riveted fascination to the end of the story. We have had Watership Down on in the camper van for ages now, and it was just reaching its magnificently thrilling conclusion. We were so captivated by the heroism of Bigwig and the cleverness of Blackberry and the terrible wickedness of General Woundwort that we forgot to pay attention to boring things like how far we had travelled.
It finished just as we reached the very top of the mountains, and we had to stop and go for a walk and a think, whilst we absorbed it all.
We did not need any more stories for the rest of the journey.
That one had been enough.
