I am pleased to tell you that today, so far, has been refreshingly devoid of misadventure, at least compared to yesterday.
I went to Booths, where the shelves had been at least partly filled, although they could not be described as lavish, perhaps there is some sort of an international supply misadventure going on. I wanted some dates, which I know come from Israel, so perhaps the Israelis are too busy squabbling with Hamas to pay much attention to their date farms at the moment. I hope they work it out soon. I have managed to teach myself to like dates, not without some considerable effort, and I have been eating them stuffed with peanut butter whenever I have felt the need for a high-calorie moment in the taxi.
Also they are grown on kibbutzim, which I rather like. The idea of eating something which has been carefully nurtured and picked by virtuously co-operative young people appeals to me very much.
I don’t know where the peanut butter comes from, somewhere in America where it is harvested by massive American peanut-picking machines probably. I hope we don’t lose that as well.
It is still shockingly cold, which is not really news, it would be surprising if it were not in February. I am still devoting a good deal of my efforts to the shunting about of firewood. Somebody very kindly left some dry planks in the back yard the other day, which were much appreciated, although I have no idea where they actually came from, they were a surprise when I opened the door, hurrah for serendipity.
We also have some assistance in the firewood department as well, we have some people staying on the field in their camper van who have helpfully offered to split up some logs for us. Mark has left a pile of cut logs drying nicely under a tarp, and wonderfully, they are splitting and stacking them for us. They will not be any good to be burned this year, but probably by next winter they will be absolutely perfect, although probably will only last for about a week, firewood is an endless absorber of labour.
Talking of Mark, there is a possibility that he will be coming home in a couple of days. The oil industry thinks that they might be able to reach the leaky boat without enough lifeboats with a helicopter on Thursday and will lift some men off.
This will resolve the problem of not having enough lifeboats, even if it doesn’t refill their larder.
There are no promises, of course, because of having to wait until the hurricane in the North Sea stops, but I am allowing myself to feel quietly hopeful.
Of course even if he has to stay there a bit longer he will still be paid, so every hurricane has its silver lining, I will not be too downcast.
Partly I will be pleased to have some cash because the people who are going to build the windows for the camper van have been in touch. We had another price from somebody else which was actually more than ten times as much for the same windows, or at any rate I think they are the same windows. I am feeling mildly concerned in case we are about to purchase some shockingly rubbish cheap shoddy junk windows, and I keep flicking between the two websites to see if I can detect any differences. So far I can’t, although I suspect that Mark will instantly point out some glaring defects when he gets home, so I haven’t yet placed the final order, it would be terrible if I turned out to have been a non-refundable simpleton.
It is very exciting, though. The camper van project seems to be taking ages to get off the ground, mostly because whenever Mark comes home somebody’s car has fallen apart and he is kept busy nailing it back together, but with any luck this time will be different, and I am driving my taxi very carefully just to be on the safe side.
I have spent the afternoon reading my Clive story into the computer for Audible. I should have been getting on with this weeks and weeks ago, but I have been shirking it, and today I resolved that I would make some effort.
I managed about four chapters, much to my irritation, because I had hoped to do about ten. The problem with reading it during the day is that the telephone rings, and the builders shout things in their yard, and the clock strikes.
Obviously the clock strikes at night as well, the point being that the daytime seems full of tiresome noises that you just don’t notice until you are trying to do something very, very quiet, and I have to keep scrapping bits and starting all over again.
I am going to try and get it done, and will have another go tomorrow.
Onwards and upwards.
PS. I told another taxi driver about my forged twenty pound note last night and it turned out that he had had two, so it could have been worse.
Perhaps the Lake District has been invaded by a rascally gang of master criminals.
We had all better be on our guard.
