And after all that, I am back on the taxi rank in the rain.
It is very wet, and so cold here in the Lake District summer that we have lit the fire. Mark has buzzed off to do some more modifications to Lucy’s house, and I am on my own, if you don’t count the dogs, which I don’t. Also I might be alone, but I am not exactly lonely. Indeed, I have spent half of the day telling the various Interested Of Windermere, of whom there were many, that Yes we had a lovely time and it was Prince William who Did It in the end, and hearing, in return, all of their stories about when a member of the Royal Family waved to them once. It has been most satisfactory and contentedly sociable, and London is all very nice but I like it here better.
Also I have drunk about six cups of our own Farrers of Kendal chai tea, by way of making up for lost time. Everybody in the south seems to drink coffee, which after a day or two was making me wag about quite unbearably. The tea we drink does not have caffeine in it, and we have not had time for morning coffee for ages, with the result that I discovered during my holidays that my tolerance for it has completely disappeared. This is a complete nuisance, because I like coffee, preferably the really tarry sort that makes you gasp a bit every time. Mark was not so bad, because of oil rig coffee, but I am going to have to get some practice in before I go anywhere else.
I have had a bit of a milling about day, in between the cups of tea. I did not achieve half of what I wanted to achieve, like taking the dogs anywhere at all, or writing my dissertation, or even the ironing, and the wretched Weather Gods caught me out with the washing. They waited until the very end of the day, when it was entirely dry and I was just about to bring it all in, when the heavens opened as abruptly as if somebody was being booted out of a celestial nightclub just before they were sick, and gallons and gallons of rain were hurled all over the garden. I dashed out to bring it all in so I was soaked as well, and stood for a while, dripping in the conservatory surrounded by sodden washing and making retaliatory rude gestures at the sky. Perhaps they helped, because the rain stopped, although this was no use to my washing, which had to be re-hung over the fire to steam.
I have certainly come home.
I even occupied part of the day writing a prolonged letter to the hotel’s head office, which meant I was too busy doing something urgent to write my dissertation. I helpfully explained that they should perhaps provide their staff with some basic courses in arithmetic. I do not suppose they will give a hoot about my opinion, but I think they ought to know that their staff really can’t do sums. I am not very good at sums either, just ask the Inland Revenue, to whom I once mistakenly declared that I had earned ninety thousand pounds more than I had actually earned, but I make up for the deficiency by employing a very lovely accountant with a working calculator and an inexplicable interest in spreadsheets.
It is odd to be by myself so suddenly, but probably a good thing really. The new axle has not yet turned up for the camper van, and poor Lucy really needs her house glueing together properly. I am very glad Mark has gone down to do it. He has not got very long, because he goes offshore in less than a week, but he will be able to do some things, like make a dusty mess, probably.
If I manage to organise my life properly I should manage to write my dissertation and even do all of the ironing before he gets home again.
I am definitely going to start on it all tomorrow.
