Cricket

Oliver has finished school for Easter.

I got up in what felt like the middle of the night and drove over to Bedale to get him. His school term ended at half past nine in the morning. The very sensible thinking behind this was to give everyone time at the beginning of the day to get everything tidied up, and then to go home before they made a mess again, leaving the staff with plenty of time to get to the Bedale Arms for a restorative lunch.

I was a bit early, and the place was buzzing with bouncing small boys who looked very happy, but suspiciously crumpled, as though they had been too excited to go to sleep properly last night, and then been too sleepy to brush their hair and tie their tie tidily this morning.

Oliver staggered up to me dragging his enormous bag and beaming from ear to ear. It was lovely to be reunited. He had a cheery five minutes saying goodbye to all his chums and then we were away. He tore his tie off almost before we were out of the gate and settled down in the front seat with a contented sigh to stuff himself with the tuck which he is not allowed at school and which I bring with me as a coming-home celebratory nice thing, and we had blissful silence for twenty minutes, until he was sated and sticky and ready to tell me all about school.

School, he thinks, is ace, he can’t remember much about what he has been doing, except that, guess what? it will be cricket next term and he has got lots of new cricket kit, and can he have some new shoes for it? and they have been practising already and his form teacher is a really cool bowler, and guess what? when they played against the other first form team they won, and Oliver hit the ball and then he ran faster than the ball, and guess what? he wasn’t out, and cricket is ace, almost as good as rugger but not as muddy and yes of course he’s been working hard at maths and things,  oh, and they had a pillow fight and guess what? he got some runs when they played cricket, and no he has no idea if his spelling is better but next term he wants to be in the first form cricket team, and a boy called Hounslow (or something) had a leg before wicket, and Mitchell got caught out, crikey!

I have to admit that I may not exactly have been listening as astutely as perhaps I ought to have been doing but that was the gist, and it lasted all the way to Barnard Castle. After that we put the Hitch Hiker’s Guide on the CD player and listened to that all the way home. He laughed a lot at the bit where Arthur Dent said that he wished he’d listened to his mother, and Ford Prefect asks why, what did she say? and Arthur doesn’t know, because he wasn’t listening. I laughed as well, but actually I know just how she felt.

When we got home I piled Oliver’s bags on top of Lucy’s trunk which was still sitting as a monument to my inadequacy in the living room. I made a half-hearted start at unpacking it all, but after ten minutes it had become too difficult for a person who had got up especially early, so I sat looking at it helplessly until Mark took pity on me and hauled the whole lot up to the loft out of sight, so that I can start processing it at my leisure a bit at a time over the holidays.

It is a massive task. The whole horrible smelly tangle of juvenile uniform and sport kit and mufti and books and games shoes and abandoned tuck and odd socks and out of date comics has all got to be sorted and laundered and smoothed and have the name tags checked or renewed and marked off on kit lists. It has to be replaced or supplemented as the new summer sporting events commence. I will have to find out if shoes still fit, and hunt out tennis rackets and count underwear and mend holes. Tuck and shampoo and reading matter will have to be replaced, torch batteries renewed, and phone cards issued.

I am overwhelmed with admiration and happiness for the lives they lead at their schools. Both schools are magnificent in every way, and more than worth a whole lifetime of effort, but today their luggage is an unspeakable clutter of laddered tights and muddy wellies and spelling lists and pyjamas and I don’t even want to think about it.

I’ll get round to it. After all, I have got three weeks.