I have had a frustrating afternoon.
An electrical company which is moving out of a shed near the camper van had some solar panels they did not want and had offered to sell them to Mark for a few quid.
Mark had been very pleased indeed, because they were far better than the ones that we have, and would have been perfect to put on the roof of the van, but when I went to collect them today as arranged, it appeared that they had forgotten all about it and smashed them up and put them in the skip.
I am trying to remember that there will be other solar panels and that I need not be downcast, but all the same it is making me frown.
It is not the end of the world. We will find others, and in any case we do not have any spare cash for solar panels at the moment. I sat on the taxi rank until after midnight last night but still made rather less than forty quid.
In other news, it has been rather a pleasant day. I slept late this morning, and spent the rest of the morning, which wasn’t very long, rushing around trying to do everything quickly to assuage my guilt.
Oliver and I went over the fells with the dogs. He buzzed off to the gym later, because he is youthful and energetic, but I occupied my afternoon with rather less exhausting activities.
You might recall that when we redecorated our front garden last year, I thought I might like to make some fairies to inhabit it.
I can’t actually remember if I told you about this. I was just amused by the idea of having very ugly fairies peering out round corners and surprising people.
I started to make one out of one of Lucy’s old Barbie dolls last year but abandoned the project when more pressing activities got in the way, like earning a living and feeding ourselves.
Today the sun was shining. I liked the idea of an excuse to loaf about in the sunny conservatory, doing something that I could pretend was constructive home improvement, and so I dug the already mildly uglified Barbie out from her corner under the office desk.
This took rather longer than I had expected due to the horrible discovery that Guffy had also discovered this dark corner, some considerable time ago by the look of it, and used it as an emergency lavatory.
You will the pleased to hear that she is fully recovered today, by the way, and has discovered the rat holes in the back yard. She is very interested indeed by these, and has been peering down them with rapt attention, like a Victorian youth at one of those old-fashioned peep-shows.
Fortunately she has not tried to explore any of them yet, given that I do not think she is very much bigger than a rat herself.
I hauled Barbie downstairs, and began to restore her to life.
I passed a very contented couple of hours in the warm sunshine, smearing clay about and poking it with a sharp clay-poking tool, until I felt that I had achieved a reasonable result. She still needs sanding off, and some final modifications to be added, but on the whole I think her makeover could be said to be complete.
She is very unattractive indeed now, I do not think that Ken would be nearly as smitten with her new appearance, although I rather like her.
I am going to paint her, and give her a thick coat of lacquer in order to stop her from dissolving in the Lake District weather, and then dress her in some suitably fairy-like rags.
Maybe I will even get round to manufacturing some friends for her
