I am back.
You will not be surprised to learn that I am on the taxi rank. Some things stay eternally unchanging.
At least, I hope they do, it would be terrible if the car broke down and I could not be on the taxi rank any more. I can’t say I was overwhelmed with boundless enthusiasm for being here tonight, but I am glad that I can, not least because I have spent all of our money.
The engine light has been on half the way home. This always happens when I drive too fast. It winked out about ten minutes ago, now that we are at tootling speed again.
A lot of the way home was at something of a tootling speed as well, and quite a bit of it was at a sitting-in-a-queue sort of speed. It was not a hasty trip. It took me eight hours.
When I woke up this morning it was to the exciting noises of rolling thunder and the hammering of monsoon rain. Number One Daughter had already gone to work. She told me later that she had got fed up of listening to Tonka sitting by my bed crying to be allowed to get in it, and had obliged him to go back down to the kitchen. I knew nothing about this because of having slept an exhausted sleep, the sort you can have when you do not have a credit card bill, which fortunately I haven’t at the moment, so I didn’t hear anything. Also when I woke up, Tonka was sitting hopefully by my bed again, so obviously he had escaped from the kitchen when Number One Daughter went off to work.
I helped myself to some toast and tea, and I was just about to set off to meet Number One Daughter when I realised that Tonka was milling about under my feet in an irritating sort of way, so we went outside for a while, despite the lashing rain, and Tonka belted up and down whilst I pretended to chase him, until we were both very wet but contented with our morning.
It was indeed remarkably wet.
Once Tonka had been abandoned to his now sodden day, milling about between Number One Daughter’s kitchen and back garden, I squelched off to my car to meet Number One Daughter at their new house.
They have bought a house, so they will not be living on the Army camp for very much longer. I liked the Army camp, it is very peaceful and tidily organised, but they want a real house all of their own, and so they have bought this one a little way away, and I went to look at it.
It is very nice indeed. That is, it isn’t very nice yet, because they are building bits and painting bits and getting rid of every grubby trace of the previous grubby owners, but it is going to be absolutely stunning. There is a wide space as you come into the house, with patio doors to the garden on one side of it and a bright living room on the other. It is going to be a very beautiful house indeed.
They are struggling hard to manage all of the necessary works at the moment, because of the school fees and still having to rent the house on the Army barracks, but when it is done it is going to be beyond amazing, and I was jolly impressed. Number One Daughter has utterly impeccable taste, no orange walls or stick-on flowers in her house, and even her Army quarters gives off a wonderful air of calm tranquillity, as if there was a tape of Whale Sounds And Pan Pipes playing in the background, which there isn’t, obviously, so the new place is going to be lovely when it is done.
I will be able to go there for my holidays.
After that the day was filled up with driving, and the occasional telephone chat with Oliver as he worked out how to operate the new washing machine and cooker. The rain stopped after a little while, and by the time I got home the evening was balmy and mild. It has obviously been warm here because the conservatory was tropically hot, and so was the water when I turned on the taps.
It is a very long way from Salisbury to our house. I do not mind this but I was not sorry when it was over, and I could take my poor exhausted taxi out to sit on the taxi rank for the evening.
It is done.
