It is almost ten o’clock at night and I am yawning so much that my jaw is going to come off its hinges soon if I do not get sone sleep.
Mark is going in the morning. He is going to drive to Aberdeen and the on Tuesday morning he is going to get on a helicopter and rattle away into the sky. He thought he might go tomorrow evening but I have insisted. I have experience of the Gods and their ideas of what makes a funny camper-van related joke at really important times like this, and so he is setting off with sufficient time for me to drive all the way up as well, just in case I have to rescue him.
It doesn’t matter if he gets stuck on the way back because it will be almost Oliver’s Easter holidays and so Mark can just wait at the side of the motorway and then flag him down as he zips past in his little car.
We have spent the entire weekend faffing about trying to get things ready, and I have been making the sort of list that says: Germolene, 4 x prs sox, PASSPORT, reading glasses, whilst at the same time trying to download the entirety of the Game Of Thrones series on to Mark’s computer. I got as far as Season Six before it ran out of memory, but it is still plenty to occupy him through lots of wet days.
The thing about oil rigs is that when the weather becomes inclement everybody comes indoors and goes back to bed, which I think is an absolutely brilliant idea, and I wish it was a working time directive insisted upon by the Government for everybody. Of course on oil rigs it is so that the oil companies do not have to fork out for lots of insurance claims made by dozens of angry platers who have been blown overboard and drowned, which is not a difficulty which frequently presents itself in a taxi, even in the Lake District, but I think it sounds splendid all the same.
Hence I have made sure that he has got plenty of reading material and watching material just in case March turns into an offshore hurricane and they are all left cowering under their bunks for a couple of weeks. It would be very dull to be stuck on an oil rig without a good book. My understanding is that oil rigs are really keen on hot food and fitness equipment but are not well equipped with library facilities, perhaps I should write to the chairman of British Petroleum and suggest it.
Really I have spent almost the whole weekend flapping about trying not to forget things. His new employer has sent him lots of welcoming presents. There are some boots and some boiler suits and some knee pads and head torches and all sorts of exciting treasure. I asked if he wanted me to sew IBBETSON in any of it, since just like school uniform, everybody’s will just look the same, but he said that he preferred to take his chances with the First Up Best Dressed arrangement.
We worked last night, because of making the fuel money for the journey, but Number One Son-In-Law had kindly advanced us some, so tonight we did not bother, and instead we went to the Indian restaurant for a farewell Mango Butter Chicken With Pilau Rice And Poppadoms Please, plus a large glass of red wine. We were the only customers there, which helped us feel less guiltily idle, and we had a lovely time. It is such a long time since either of us has had anything alcoholic to drink that by the time we came out we were decidedly squiffy, and we stumbled home contentedly across the road thinking how lovely it is to have eaten far more than you actually need and that none of it was sausages or jam sandwiches.
It is really happening. I am as excited as if it were me, and perhaps more so because all I have got to do is imagine the terrifying helicopter and colossal oil tank to be welded together whilst disguised as an octopus, and all of the tiresome inconveniences of adventuring will be Mark’s problem and not mine.
We are right on the cusp of change.
Tomorrow we take the plunge.*
*Not literally, obviously.
