I am on the taxi rank in the rain.
We have had a frustratingly busy couple of days, frustrating because of having tiresome things at home that needed doing, like taking children to the dentist. These meant that we were not able to get on with doing our eternally-dismantled camper van project.
I have been sitting in the taxi this evening with my whole soul engrossed in daydreaming of the about-to-commence project of sticking some lino to the ceiling.
I want to do this very badly indeed, because of having become quite Asperger’s Syndrome obsessive. We have got the lino and everything. Not quite everything, actually, because we haven’t got the glue, but apart from that we have got everything that we need, by which I suppose I mean that we have got the lino.
Mark has promised that we will do it next week, as soon as we have gone to Kendal and bought six more tubes of glue, but pointed out sensibly that in order to buy glue, we first need to earn some money, which is of course why we are on the taxi rank.
Also of course there are things like school fees and the mortgage, but those things are not nearly as interesting as glue, obviously.
We have got some very pretty lino which is pretending to be tiles, in shades of smoky grey and pink, and I like it very much. We almost bought a stick-on mural of the sky to put up instead, but in the end we didn’t. I forget why, because I was really quite taken with the idea. It certainly wasn’t because of having too much sophisticated good taste.
However due to domestic circumstances being what they were, we have not been able to get on with creating a happy-ever after ceiling, with or without a stick-on blue sky.
Mark had got to go and put an adequate handbrake on to my taxi in order for it to achieve its MOT.
I had to rewrite the first chapters of my never-ending story, which I have been reliably told are a bit dull, and send it off to another handful of agents.
On consideration I knew that I agreed about the dullness, so I didn’t rewrite them at all, just deleted them with a cleansing ruthlessness, and included the few fragments of necessary background information in later chapters.
On completion of this accomplishment I realised that I had just disposed of about four thousand unnecessary words, which is a very great deal of verbal clutter. It is not great for your masterpiece to begin with the most boring bit of all, although to some extent inevitable, you don’t want to get too worked up too soon. Actually when I read books I don’t like to get worked up at all. Too much anxiety is not good for the soul, and so I like to read the end first, just to make sure I don’t worry unnecessarily. This preference might not help to make my own work a captivating read.
Of course as well as this, and all the usual daily events such as washing and distributing some actual food to Oliver to help his tuck pan out a bit, our visitor of yesterday was still around this morning.
This was not a tiresome chore, but rather pleasant, like having one of Numbers One and Two Daughters at home, it is lovely to have young people about the place.
She was in Windermere looking for summer employment, and as is the way of things in Windermere, she popped into several places to ask if they would employ her, and was greeted with a resounding yes in every single one. Their only concern was that she couldn’t start for a week. Some of them didn’t even ask her name first. She is experienced and sensible and employable, but frankly I suspect it wouldn’t have mattered if she wasn’t. At this time of year you will find work here even if you need to take your socks off for calculations past ten.
That having been satisfactorily achieved we had a sociable cup of tea and she buzzed off when we went to work, which is where we are now.
We have been here ages since I started writing this.
I have got enough for glue and a down-payment on the school fees.
Life is looking up.
Have another picture of the camper van so that we all remember how exciting it is.
