Mark rang last night to tell me that they had finished the job early and that he would be coming home tomorrow instead of on Friday, which was when he was expected.
I was a bit disappointed about this, because to lose two days’ wages is a noticeable thing when you are an oil rig worker and not a taxi driver. It would not quite pay for a family of four to have a fortnight’s holiday in the Algarve, but it would get them their taxi to the airport, as long as they were going from somewhere reasonable and not Heathrow, which is so far away from Cumbria that it is practically abroad already.
Talking of holidays, you will be pleased to hear that I have had a message from Oliver assuring me that he has landed safely in Japan, and found their Air B&B. He has started his adventure. I have promised not to be a helicopter parent, and so I am not expecting to hear any more from him over the next few days. There is a WhatsApp group for the parents of the other teenage boys who have also gone, with all sorts of details about their itinerary and their lodgings and their travel, and all that sort of stuff, but I have not read any of it. I have every faith in Oliver. He is eighteen, and if he can’t be trusted to manage himself on a holiday to Japan then he should have stayed at home. Also he will learn how to manage a holiday to Japan by having one. It will be good for him.
I have made sure that there is sufficient space in the credit card to rescue him should he have an emergency, and my helicopter parenting ends there. I have not told him about this so if he has an emergency probably he will work it out himself before he phones home in a flap.
I reconciled myself to the loss of two days’ pay by recollecting how nice it would be to have Mark home. I remembered that if he was coming home midweek we would be able to take a night off and not go to work, which we can’t do if he comes home at weekend, and after a little while I was very pleased indeed.
I had a very busy day in between.
I got up especially early, because I was coming to Manchester today, and there were all sorts of things I needed to do first, not least a haircut because unlike the dogs, I loathe becoming horribly shaggy. I set the alarm for seven, which on weekends at least, is only very shortly after I usually go to bed, and staggered out in a confused sort of way to take the dogs over the fells before I did anything important.
It was a glorious morning, which helped, it would have been rubbish to have been half-asleep in the rain, and by the time I got to the top of the first one I had thoroughly woken up and was enthusiastically thinking about my story.
I have not thought much about this for ages but this morning I was inspired so all I need now is about twelve hours when I am not doing anything else and I will have written most of a best-seller.
After that I loaded the dogs into the back of the car and we went to Kendal.
We had to stop halfway because I had forgotten to take the taxi sign off the roof, but at least I remembered before I bashed it off on the roof of the multi-storey car park.
I got my hair cut, which was wonderful. It is short and – well – short. There isn’t much else you can say about it. It is really splendidly short.
After that I rushed round Asda and then straight down the motorway to visit my father in the hospital
Parking at the hospital was not very much fun at all.
I had thought I would find a parking space under some trees because of having the dogs in the car, but in the end after hours of driving round and round, it was plain there were no parking spaces anywhere, never mind underneath trees, and there were about thirty other cars all driving round and around in circles as well.
In the end we left the hospital and found a back street about half a mile away, which was shady and pleasant, so I let the dogs out to charge about for a bit, and then dumped them in the taxi with the windows all open.
All of my useful things like my computer and my clothes were in the taxi, not to mention the shopping from Asda, so I hoped that it was too warm for thieves to be about, but warned Roger Poopy that he had got to be on guard anyway. He ignored me and went instantly to sleep. When I got back to the car later he barely stirred, so he would have been rubbish if a car-burglar had been hoping to discover a haul of soap powder and ground garlic and dog food.
There is no point in telling Rosie to be in guard. She is by far the more savage of the two but only about eight inches tall. Even with her double rows of teeth she fails to be terrifying, unless you had been watching horror films and it was a full moon.
My father seems to be recovering. We have all got our fingers crossed.
I have returned to their house, where I am sleeping in the camper van, which as you will remember is still lying forlorn and abandoned in their driveway.
It is a joy to be in it. It is a bit abandoned and smelly but it is our camper van and I love it very much. I have opened all of the windows, which is helping.
Mark phoned this evening to say that his name is not on the helicopter list for tomorrow so he will not be coming home until Friday after all.
Ah well.
