This is about to turn into the sort of hasty diary entry written when I am first late, and second, drunk. It will be the sort of diary entry with the briefest and most succinct of details, and I am really sorry, but if you are hoping for wit or profound insight you might be better off reading something else or perhaps inventing some for yourself.
We have had a night off.
Our friends Kate and Kevin came to visit us, and took us, as a sort of trial run, to the restaurant where Lucy is getting married in November.
Goodness me, it was splendid.
I have lived entirely on porridge and home-made burritos for the past few weeks. It is some time since the concept of eating for pleasure has featured very much in my dietary contemplations, and hence it was a magnificent surprise.
It was absolutely brilliant.
At least, everything I ate was brilliant, I do not know about everybody else. At any rate, they all said it was fantastic, and I do not think they were just being polite.
We were too stuffed full of dinner even to have pudding, and they had sticky toffee puddings, perhaps we will go back another night and just have pudding.
For anybody looking for a recommendation of eating in Windermere, I can hardly recommend it thoroughly enough. It is called San Pietro, and it is just across the road from our house, and you could always pop round for a cup of tea afterwards.
Nicer than the dinner, even, was seeing Kate and Kevin, and we did the sort of talking where there is so much to tell that you can’t squeeze all of it in to the time and so the evening was over far too soon, even though it is long after midnight.
They had to drive from Lancaster, which is almost an hour away, and we were not ready when they got here, so they very kindly went and milled about by the lake whilst we leaped hurriedly out of the shower and got dressed.
We had to have a shower, we really had to have one, because we had been working at the camper van all day, and we were filthy. Really, really filthy, the sort of filthy with black smears and grit in your hair, the sort where you can see a line on your ankles where your socks stopped.
I was wearing shorts. My legs were a sort of mottled grey colour, over the top of the scarlet sunburn. It has been hot. Really hot by Lake District standards, and the dust and grime of camper van building stuck to our sticky skin.
I took the dogs out in the morning whilst Mark and Oliver faffed about checking Oliver’s car, which is booked in for an MOT tomorrow. Irritatingly, it needed a bit fixing somewhere around one of the wheels, and some new brake pads, so when we reconvened we decided all to go off to the shed together.
I did things to the camper van whilst Mark helped Oliver mend his car.
I have been doing things to the roof. This is especially thrilling because it is a very long way high up, and is terrifying. I climbed up the ladder, and had to concentrate really hard on what I was doing, the way you look at the horizon when you don’t want to be seasick. Also we had covered the roof with a slippery sheet of plastic, which left my heart in my mouth with every cautious step.
We are filling in the old window holes.
I cut the cross-pieces and the patches, and then polished all of the old glue off the roof with the jiggly tool and the wire brush attachment for the grinder until I had full-body vibration white finger.
This does not sound very much, but it took me all day. Mark is going to weld the patches on tomorrow, because everything is clean and prepared and ready, and he can just glue it all together with his welder.
I have done two windows, there are two more to go. Mark and Oliver fixed the car as well, so with any luck it might even pass tomorrow.
It was absolutely bliss to be back at the van.
I am going to go to bed.
It has been the most splendid of summer days imaginable.
There will be another one tomorrow.
