We are becoming a Limited Company. We are going to be Ibbetson Limited, which sounds like Ibbets Unlimited if you say it in the right way.
That is to say, I think we probably are. So far I am all right, but it appears that Mark has failed his online ID check. This takes a photograph of you and then matches your face with your passport so that the Government can enter you into their database that they share with the Chinese, and misfortunately it appears that Mark has now got the wrong face.
I don’t know what we are going to do about it. His face usually works perfectly well when getting on and off helicopters in order to visit oil rigs. It works reasonably well when I look at it as well, and although I admit I have not been paying much attention lately, probably I would have noticed if he had grown a new one.
We will try the ID check again tomorrow and see if it works next time.
My face matched all right. That hasn’t changed very much, misfortunately.
Mark was going to take his taxi in for an MOT today, but it has developed a very irritating light on the dashboard which makes it go slower than it should, and which he thinks is because some pump has got a faulty wire on it. This is an absolute nuisance because it means he will have to spend the rest of the week fixing it, and the thing that really needs fixing is the camper van. This is terribly in need of some attention. I forget what is wrong with it this time but being forty three years old does not help, and we were hoping to do some travelling in it next week.
We are have got a lot of travelling about to be done. We are going to Cambridge, where they will keep me in suspense for an evening of award speeches and a dinner, before giving the Florence Staniforth Prize to my friend Emma, and I will have to arrange my face in the sort of congratulatory expression that doesn’t mind in the least. I am not quite sure what this is supposed to look like, so perhaps I should practise in a mirror first. I hope it does not turn out to be too difficult after a few drinks.
There is always the alternative option of collapsing on the table and sobbing noisily and uncontrollably, which I can’t help but find appealing. That would teach them not to do the whole suspense-thing again, there is too much stress in the world as it is.
I am not really worried. It isn’t exactly the BAFTAs, and in any case, the prize money wouldn’t even cover the cost of fuel to get there. I just like the idea of winning a prize because of the potentially satisfactory showing-off that I could do in these pages afterwards. It wouldn’t add any letters after my name but I could always put Prize Winner in brackets or something. In any case I genuinely don’t think I will win, because I didn’t think the story was good enough. They will say all the usual blurb about the competition being so stiff they could hardly decide among so many geniuses, but take it from me, if I do win, then it wasn’t.
After that we are immediately dashing up to Gordonstoun, where we will be pretending to be middle class at their final evening of Scottish reels and whisky drinking. We need the camper van for this because of the whisky, the evening will work better if we can just pass out at the end of it.
Of course all of this is going to take some considerable flapping about. Dinners and drinking and dancing are all very well but I am going to have to wear some dresses. I bought some on eBay, but have taken them to be altered, and it looks now as though they won’t be finished until after we have set off, so they will have to wait until London to be worn.
With this in mind I dashed up to the loft again this afternoon to try dresses on in order to see if the absence of chocolate buttons is making any appreciable difference to my waistline, which it isn’t, although having Mark there to tug the straining zips shut helped a bit.
We thought we would have a look in Kendal. I went in for a look whilst Mark was taking his taxi to run through some electrician’s diagnostic machine, but I didn’t find any dresses. I bought some coffee and tea and a new raincoat, which has turned out to be a prudent purchase now that summer is truly upon us.
I am also worrying about shoes. Gordonstoun wrote to us telling us that we would need to remember that the dancing would be held in the middle of the night on the main lawn, which is fine in Gordonstoun because it doesn’t go dark there in the summer, but warned that we would need appropriate footwear with our Formal Dress. Mark said this meant a suit and wellies.
I am in despair. It is so difficult to be middle class.
I don’t know how people manage it all the time.