It has rained for the whole of the day.
Not even on-and-off in showers. It has rained from the first moment I wondered if the drizzle could be considered sufficiently light to peg out the washing this morning, right up until the moment I got in my taxi to come to work.
The sun came out then, beaming benevolently upon the sodden world.
I have had to drape the washing damply all over the house, like limp seaweed. I lit the fire to cheer things up, but it didn’t, much.
In fact I didn’t mind as much as I might have done, because I was not at home for very much of the day. Oliver had an appointment in Kendal this morning for the orthodontist to fiddle about with his brace, and rabbit on and on and on about the most effective methods of tooth brushing. How odd it is to hear about other people’s obsessive little life-fixations, he might be quite dull to be married to.
When we got back he had another appointment this afternoon, this one with the GP, which was equally uninspiring.
This was not for anything serious or even especially interesting, although I have a vague feeling that other people’s doctors’ appointments ought not to be described in thrilling detail in these pages, and so I have desisted. You can hear all about my own captivating and occasionally gory medical adventures, but Oliver’s really are entirely his own business and so if he wants you to know about his gum infection he can tell you himself.
All he needs now is the haircut and he will be entirely serviced with all minor repairs completed, ready to be dispatched back to school at weekend.
We are having an unexpected last-minute revision of these plans because Number One Son-In-Law is also heading up to Scotland on Sunday and has very generously offered to provide Oliver with a lift.
This has thrown me into an immediate dither.
We ought to agree instantly and gratefully. Most especially we should accept because we absolutely have to be back in Cumbria on Tuesday, no matter what, and belting seven hundred miles to the end of the world and back, in an ancient dodgy camper van with an important deadline, would surely be better left to somebody else.
Two important deadlines, because Oliver has got GCSE exams on Tuesday.
Hence I was rather surprised to find that in actuality, a small part of me was a bit disappointed: and even more surprised to discover that Mark felt the same.
It turns out that we rather like driving hundreds of miles through the Scottish wilderness and are reluctant to surrender the adventure. This realisation has rather surprised us, because it is a complete and exhausting nuisance. We have got lots and lots of other things that really we ought to be doing, and we should very much stay at home and do them.
Indeed, if we do not go to Scotland we have no excuse for not doing them.
We do not know what to do.
We have got to be back by Tuesday anyway, so we cannot dawdle about and make it a holiday. This is because we are witnesses in a court case. A local chap is being taken to court by the council on charges of operating a taxi without a licence, and we have got to give evidence.
This is the dullest of all court cases unless you are a taxi driver, although I can jolly well tell you that if you are one, you are utterly gripped and have got plenty to say about it. I have been buttonholed by any number of drivers and told, accusingly, that Something Should Be Done.
When I have explained that Something Is Being Done, they have considered turning up in court in great numbers, presumably to look intimidating in the public gallery so that the judge knows how upset they are. Obviously they won’t do this, because they are taxi drivers and scared of judges, and also will forget all about the whole thing the minute the chap is out of sight. We all have an attention capacity rather similar to Rosie’s, which is why we have to drive taxis for a living.
Unfortunately I will have to concentrate, however, and so we have got to be back here by Tuesday.
I think I would still like to go to Scotland anyway.
We will see how the weekend goes.
