Number Two Daughter is getting married today.
She isn’t married already, because the bit of Canada where they are is so far away that there is a seven hour difference between their time and ours, and so she will actually be getting married practically in the middle of the night.
I am feeling sad that we are not there, but very pleased that she is so happy. I talked to her on the telephone a little while ago, in what was the first thing in the morning for her and the middle of my afternoon ironing for me. She said that getting married is very stressful, which just about everybody who has ever done it would have been able to tell her, but she sounded happy anyway.
They are getting married in a field somewhere in Canada’s distant outback. It sounds splendid.
Also I am not too sad because they have promised to have an English wedding as well, as part of Lucy’s wedding. We are very excited about this. Lucy said that she would really like this because that way people would stop looking at her for a while. I suppose this is sensible, and will give her an opportunity to relax and put her feet on the table and pick her nose if she feels like it.
Getting married is a strain.
I am very pleased that they are doing it because I like our lovely about-to-be Mrs. Number Two Daughter every much. She is a smiling, tolerant sort of person, the sort that is so easy to get along with that you have got to keep thinking about what you say because she would never let you know if you were saying anything that made you sound completely mental.
I occasionally interrupt people to explain this if they have merited it. I had a couple of passengers going to Kendal last night. The young man was being completely horrible, but shockingly, he had no idea that he was doing it. I was talking to his girlfriend who was sitting in the back. He was sitting in the front because he thought he was important, and he kept interrupting her to tell me what she thought. He knew what she wanted and what was best for her and absolutely everything she might ever want to say, so she had no need to open her own mouth. He was not doing it to be unkind. He was being friendly and cheerful and had no idea that he was utterly hateful, and by the time we were halfway to Kendal I loathed him with a small, bubbling passion.
I told him what I thought, but of course he didn’t understand, and merely beamed happily and nodded when he got out.
I hope she notices and does something about it soon.
Apart from that the weekend is proceeding quietly. We have found another French house that I would like to live in, and I have been investigating how we might inveigle ourselves into the French tax system.
This turns out to be so hideously complicated that I am tempted to pretend that we just live at Lucy’s house. The problem is that Ibbetson Ltd is registered in the UK, earns all of its income offshore, but I will be domiciled in France. It does not seem to matter where Mark is domiciled because he earns his money at sea. I can’t earn money in France unless I am registered to the French tax system, which would mean that Ibbetson Ltd would need to become a Multinational in order to pay me there.
I was cross-eyed by the time I had finished reading it, and it was not helping my headache, which, incidentally, has finally retreated today, to my colossal relief.
I have never tried to become a Multinational company before, and am not very sanguine that I will achieve it now.
I will have to give it some careful thought.
