Whilst I can’t say that I am exactly hopeful for a sudden gush of profitable well-being to wash over the country with the arrival of our newly beloved leader, I do wish the newspaper would stop being so horrid about him.
They are not saying supportive kindly things, and he hasn’t done anything rubbish at all yet.
I do not think it helps anybody to tell the world that they are definitely going to be a failure before they have even started. If you have got a six year old you do not start saying to them that they are too dim ever to be able to remember their seven times table, even if you know secretly that this is probably true. Certainly it was true in my case, although it turned out that you could manage life perfectly well without it, despite everything the teacher said about it being a crucial building block. Actually it wasn’t after all, what good fortune.
Anyway, I think a bit of positive optimism might be a good thing, and I might write to him and say so. Dear Andy Burnham, I think you should ignore the august Daily Telegraph and just get on with it. I am sure you are very clever really and will do a lovely job, especially since you gave Rachel Reeves the boot straight away and picked the chap who wants to spend more cash on soldiers and oil rigs. Keep up the good work. Love from Sarah.
PS. I should add, for the sake of transparency, that I have something of a vested interest in soldiers and oil rigs.
Anyway, as you know, we are home.
We slept for about ten hours, and when we woke up found that all of our muscles were aching so much we could barely get out of bed. Mark spent yesterday shovelling cement, which made him worse than me because I had only been doing electricity, but it was pretty grim all the same.
We had just poured our coffee and were trying to find a comfortable way of sitting in a bed that had got four dogs on it, when the phone rang.
Hello, said the chap on the other end. I haven’t heard from you so I was just checking that everything is all right for you to mobilise in Aberdeen tomorrow.
We might not have been paying much attention to the rest of our lives for a while, and it is not an exaggeration to say that this was a total surprise.
Mark assured him untruthfully that everything was under control, and then the rest of the day turned into a completely panicked rush.
Of course there was laundry to be done, although some kind fairy had already put clean sheets on our bed, and fortunately Mark had left his bags ready packed.
He had courses to complete, the sort of Health and Safety jumbo jumbo where they tell you how to lift things without slipping a disc and not to inhale anywhere near asbestos, and I had to rush round to the chemist and beseech them to organise his blood pressure medication in a hurry.
I took the dogs over the fell whilst Mark took all of our tools back to unload into the shed. Everywhere is very dry indeed. The grass is brown and things are beginning to wilt. It is a lot warmer here than it is in Manchester.
Oliver has been absolutely brilliant at managing things whilst we have been away. The animals are doing splendidly, the house is tidy, and all of our washing was done. He crept off out this morning before we even stirred, and rang me from Kendal to tell me he was going to collect more dog food on his way home.
I was massively relieved. He has saved us so many worries.
Guffy has missed us.
She has jumped on my knee every time I have sat down, purring loudly and holding my fingers firmly between her teeth to prevent my escape, which did not make it easy to put my shoes on or eat my breakfast.
She is still not better.
Mark has gone now, and I need to buy food tomorrow, so I have been obliged to go and sit on the taxi rank to replenish our empty coffers. I do not mind this in the least, it is very nice indeed to be sitting in one place doing nothing whatsoever.
I do not know when he will be coming back. The job spec says Until The Job Is Finished, so we will just have to wait and see.
It is lovely to be home. The baby pigeons have hatched in their nest in the tree in our yard, which is a joy. I can hear them squeaking every time I go out of the back door.
It must be very hard work being a mummy pigeon.
Almost as busy as being a person.
