Metamorphosis!

Last weekend my husband borrowed the company van. We had a busy time planned, which included some furniture moving. Eldest son was picking up student son from university, on Friday evening and taking him to his house for the night. The following day student son was accompanying us on our furniture moving mission.

On Saturday morning, my husband and I began by dismantling student son's cabin bed, with incorporated desk area, as we needed to transport it up north, to my sister-in-law's house, so that my husband's 8 year old nephew could make use of it. After lunch, on Saturday, we loaded the bed onto the large, white van, before driving over to eldest son's house to pick up student son. I couldn't ever remember travelling in a large van before. I rather liked being able to see over the hedgerows, as we drove along. We slowly began to experience a change in outlook on life, from our elevated position and vaguely became aware of subtle changes in our attitudes and behaviour. My husband became rather bold at roundabouts, began to tailgate all car drivers adhering to the speed limit, and suddenly developed a new and startling affinity with other large van drivers. By the time we screeched to a halt in front of eldest son's house, he was driving with all the steely determination of a DHL delivery driver, intending to have his feet up on his own coffee table, by 1pm on Christmas Eve and addressing me in a rather colloquial fashion as 'mate'.

Whilst I leapt from the van the second it came to a standstill, my husband slammed the van doors loudly to alert the neighbours to his presence, so that they all dashed to their front windows, in pathetic, but eager anticipation of a surprise delivery. I charged up to eldest son's front door, rang the doorbell twice, banged on the front door repeatedly and shouted through the letterbox, in a rather coarse manner. By the time student son had opened the front door, I had already pushed a card through, which said that we would call again, whenever it was inconvenient and as soon as the fancy took us. We drove off at breakneck speed and were on the outskirts of the village, before student son managed to catch up with us and fling himself, breathlessly, onto the vacant passenger seat beside me. We grinned apologetically, explaining that he had been so slow in opening the door, we thought that they had all gone out.

When we arrived at my sister-in-law's house, we dropped off the bed, and student son, and then drove a mile or so, to my mother-in-law's home, in order to dismantle and collect the double bed she was giving to us and the bookcase she was passing on to eldest son. We then hoisted my mother-in-law up into the front of the van and returned to my sister-in-law's house for a family meal.

On our arrival, we discovered that the food wasn't quite ready, so my husband and son borrowed a ladder and quickly visited a few householders in the next road. They kindly explained to the house owners, that they had noticed a few of their roof tiles had slipped out of place, charging extortionate amounts of money for climbing up onto the roof and doing little more than admiring the view. Meanwhile, I walked into the town centre, pressed some unsuspecting late Saturday afternoon shoppers into buying a few bundles of lucky heather and pestered a few of my sister-in-law's neighbours to buy some clothes pegs, on my return journey.

We enjoyed a very pleasant meal at my sister-in-law's house, before setting off for home in the late evening. We were relieved to fall into bed, a few hours later, after putting up the newly acquired double bed in eldest son's old room, recently commandeered by student son.

The next day, we had all been invited to lunch by eldest son and his girlfriend. Buoyed up by the success of yesterday's shenanigans, we decided to get there early, to give ourselves some time to spend on more money-making ventures. This time, we all donned oversized jackets, with reflective bands and knocked on several people's doors, in the neighbourhood, explaining that we had some left over tarmac, after doing some work nearby and ultimately succeeded in charging several vulnerable people an over-inflated amount, for tarmacking their drives in a cowboy-like fashion.

At the end of the day, we counted up the money we had earned and were overjoyed to discover that we had managed to collect enough together to buy 6 lamb cutlets, from Waitrose, for the following day's main meal. What a treat! Fortunately, I already had a few old potatoes, which weren't too green and didn't have too many shoots, and a few floppy carrots hanging around in the bottom of the 'fridge, so we didn't need to splash out on any extras.

We were so pleased with the results of our enterprises that we decided to keep the van for an extra couple of weeks. Next weekend, we plan to sell a few DVDs at a nearby Sunday market. You might like to come along, if you're interested in buying any poor quality DVDs, with accompanying soundtracks of background whispering and the crackling of popcorn being trodden underfoot.

I have inserted an advert in the local newspaper, similar to the one below:

WOMAN AND MAN WITH VAN REQUIRE GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT.

ANYTHING CONSIDERED.

Mob No: ***********

If you have any suggestions for money-making schemes we could engage in, whilst we still have the use of our anonymous van, I would be glad to hear about them.

Is there a job we could do for you? Our prices are very unreasonable!