I am on my own.
I am very on my own at the moment because I am starting to write this whilst waiting for some customers in Glenridding. They were supposed to be here half an hour ago but it turns out that they are slower walkers than they expected.
I was late anyway so I do not mind very much. In any case, it is very beautiful here, and I have been sitting with my feet up, contemplating the bucolic perfection of the Lake District.
This works best when it is not raining.
I am not just alone in a miles-away-in-the-wilderness sort of way. I am alone because Mark and Oliver have buzzed off to Lucy’s.
Lucy and Jack have decided that they do not wish to be the owners of two cars any more. They have got one perfectly functional car and an RAC van, which between them seem to encompass all of their transport requirements.
This leaves them with a spare car, being Lucy’s Mini.
A family decision has been made to hand this over to Emily, who is Oliver’s girlfriend, and who is learning to drive, and Mark and Oliver have gone down today to bash it into the sort of shape that is reasonably likely to pass an MOT, especially with a sympathetic sort of inspector.
They are staying there for the night. It is booked in for its MOT tomorrow.
This has left me in splendid isolation once again.
I do not mind this at all. At least, I do not mind now I have finished clearing up the mess that they both left behind them. There have been several moments during the day when I minded being left by myself with it all very much indeed.
I have since regained my peaceable equilibrium. I have washed up all of their breakfast pots and done all of their laundry and tidied up the clutter that they left lying around. This has restored my tranquillity and I am no longer inclined to contemplate murderous retribution in the seething turmoil of my darkened soul. No matter how much I have tried, I cannot find it in my heart to enjoy washing up and laundry, and there were four loads today.
I have been encouraged by the recollection that there is only me in the house, so apart from the general detritus left lying around by four smelly dogs and a leaky cat, everywhere will stay tidy.
I like the house when it is like that.
Of course it is Clean Sheets Day, and I have done all of the dusting and hoovering. Oliver did his bedroom before he left, so the house is clean and tidy all the way down, but it was not the Huge Task of the day.
The Huge Task was admin.
You might recall that I have been putting clothes on eBay. Some of them had sold, and needed posting. I had purchased some clothes on my own account as well, because that is what happens when I am both thinking about clothes and gazing wistfully at eBay. Regrettably I had overestimated my size, and when they arrived this morning they were all too big.
I had the monstrous faff of repackaging them with the appropriate return labels and taking them to the Post Office as well.
As if that wasn’t sufficient time-wasting tedium for one day, I had got to deal with the new car.
There was a very lot of insurance, and taxi-licensing forms, and car tax. The old car was dumped at the scrapyard when Mark and Oliver went past it on their way down to Lucy’s this morning, and there was a great deal of paperwork. Especially there was a lot because it is a taxi, and you can’t just email the Government to tell them about it, the way you do with a normal car. You have got to fill in half a dozen different forms and photocopy your new insurance certificate and get an extra MOT to go on top of your usual MOT and spend ages and ages scowling at your computer screen and wondering if it might be a good idea to take some anticipatory drugs before the headache starts rather than afterwards. Then if you don’t get the headache at least you have the pleasantly fuzzy feeling of being full of pharmaceuticals, and so they are not wasted.
I did not take any headache drugs, mostly because I was too idle to trail down the stairs and hunt for any.
It is all done, I think.
I am at home now, and the night is ended. The house is very quiet, and we have just come back from our household dog-and-cat emptying in the Library Gardens.
I can go to bed, which is a relief.
There are even clean sheets on it.
