It has been a very quiet day.
It was all a little out of the ordinary when it started, because Dave Next Door was still here, and we had a very happy early morning coffee before he was obliged to dash off to supervise some house repairs.
It is years and years since we had seen one another, but of course it felt like barely a few weeks, and I had been surprised by the number of things that we could tell one another that were brand new news. His children are grown up and studying responsible grown-up things, and he is giving careful consideration to his pension scheme.
Imagine that. Nothing could have been further from our minds when we were youthful vagabonds, trying to scrape together sufficient funds to cook dinner every night and keep our cars on the road.
Dave’s house was at the top of a short, steep driveway. The three of us, because Dave had a lodger, used to park our cars at the top of the drive in the order in which we all had to set out for work, because all three cars needed to be bump-started. If any of us had failed by the time we got to the bottom, usually the milkman would oblige with some jump leads.
The house fell very quiet once he had gone, in the way of November days filled with thick drizzle and mist. Mark and Oliver had to depart on their car-rebuilding project, and I ambled off over the fells with the dogs.
I was glad to get out, in a head-clearing sort of way. I have reached the age where a couple of bottles of wine, even shared between four of us, because Oliver had some as well, leaves me feeling mildly fuzzy with dark hints of indigestion, and the clean, cold air of the fells seemed to help.
I thought about the camper van all the way round, and wondered, vaguely, if a rusting heap of aluminium and scrap iron might really have a soul. I couldn’t see any reason why not. Our own combination of elements, being carbon and water and some others I have forgotten, seem to manage to house one, depending on whether you believe Richard Dawkins or Billy Graham, and I don’t see any reason to imagine that other combinations of elements might not.
It was a pleasing thought, when I die perhaps it will come scampering across the rainbow bridge towards me, and we will have a joyful reunion. Or maybe it will come and wait patiently at the end of my bed, and as I draw my last breath and gaze into the bright light, I will see it there, and smile brightly, to the startled mystification of any family who couldn’t think of an excuse not to be in attendance.
If that happens, you will be able to say Aha, and explain to them.
After that the day subsided into uneventfulness. I was sleepy, because of a late night and early start, and mildly indigestiony, and almost everything difficult felt out of reach. I should have gone up to the loft and continued with the ironing project, but there were just too many stairs, so I didn’t bother. I got dinners ready and curled up at my desk to do some painting.
I did not even manage very much painting. There was a great deal of gazing dreamily at the picture, wondering what might be nice to paint next, and some absent-minded dabbing, and then swabbing off, of various poorly thought-out colours.
In the end I gave up, and thought that I might drop you a line before heading off to the taxi rank.
Going to work, fortunately, involves almost no effort whatsoever.
I am going to go and do just that.
