Good evening from the taxi rank.
It isn’t a very good evening, but I don’t mind all that much because of having had an extremely long day which started off about eighty miles still north of Perth. I am perfectly happy to sit here, undisturbed, with my splendid Cormoran Strike novel, my flask of spicy chai and my tub of home-made peanut fudge.
We had a small camper-van disaster on the way, except it wasn’t on the way. It happened on the way, but we did not find out about it until we got home. We were busily unloading when we discovered that the skylight window in the camper van bathroom had actually blown right off.
There was a rather surprising hole in the roof where the window had used to be. I stood and looked at it for quite some time before I really believed that the window had truly disappeared. In fact I stuck my hand through the hole just to make sure, but it had, indeed, gone.
The plastic must have perished in the Windermere sunshine, either that or the screws rusted away. I remembered that I had closed it before we set off, which was a happy moment, because I knew then that I was blameless and would not have to feel guiltily responsible for damage caused by my own careless neglect.
Mark came and looked as well, before sighing heavily and going into the yard to cut a piece of tin to the size of the hole. He stuck this down with gaffer tape, and said that it would do as a temporary measure until we had to go somewhere again.
The next time we are going somewhere is on Tuesday.
I couldn’t help but marvel at our good fortune. There were two reasons. Firstly, when I ordered the window in a terrible panic on Amazon they explained that it would not arrive until Monday. We were supposed to be leaving for Bath on Monday night, but as you might recall – I think I told you, or maybe I didn’t – Oliver requested that the trip was postponed until the next day because he has asked a friend from school to come and visit. Hence I had already made all the rearrangements, and Mark will not have to come home from work on Monday, fit a camper van window in a tearing hurry and then drive to Bath in the middle of the night.
That was good news.
The second small miracle was that the cost of the new window was exactly the same as the amount of cash Number One Daughter had put in our bank account as a Mother’s Day present.
That was a huge and wonderful relief.
Mark was standing on next door’s ladder, swearing and bashing the window into place, when the phone rang. It was the lady who has the dog which does not fancy Rosie and which might, quite conceivably, be the dog version of a homosexual.
The lady had the terrible news that her son had just died and she was going to Ireland to arrange his funeral, and perhaps we would look after the dog for three weeks because she was desperate.
I do not like the dog much, it is the sort of homosexual that bites, and it does not come back when you call it in the park, but obviously I was not going to say no, and Mark said that probably it would be reasonably well behaved by the end of three weeks.
I don’t know when it will be arriving, but arrive it will over the next few days, probably it will have to come to Bath with us. I am trying not to think about it being a nuisance and just being glad that I can do something for the poor heartbroken lady, but sometimes it is not exactly easy to be nice. I suppose as long as I do the nice thing I do not have to feel nice about it.
Nobody will ever know that inside I am secretly horrible.
