Exeat weekend from school, so I went over to Bedale for our son and heir this morning. Not Lucy, which was sad because we won’t see her but rather a relief because her school is an hour further away than Oliver’s so it was nice not to have such a long drive.
It was a splendid run across, because Mark let me take his car, which is smooth and fast and hardly rattles at all: compared with mine at least, although he doesn’t hoover it often enough and there appeared to be chocolate stuck on the driver’s seat which I didn’t notice until it had melted itself on to my trousers. Even despite this it was still an ace journey and I drove really fast and overtook everybody and enjoyed myself very much.
Oliver’s school is called Aysgarth, which is completely misleading because it is not at Aysgarth at all but at Newton-le-Willows. You have got to go over the high fells to get there: and there was an awful lot of snow. Some of the towns on the way are simply a testament to human bloody mindedness, why on earth anybody would live in a place like Kirkby Steven I have got no idea. It looks to be a very nice little town but it is surrounded on all sides by the bleakest, most barren fellside that it is possible to imagine, all it needs is a couple of Wildlings and a seven hundred foot wall and it could blend into Game of Thrones very nicely. In the summer it fills with gypsies, en route to Appleby Fair, to add to its odd sense of anachronism, horses and vardoes camp along the road and suntanned youths with too much hair for respectability race each other in small flying traps called sulkies, if I lived there I would be taking my daughters firmly away on holiday during those weeks.
It was lovely to see Oliver. He staggered out with his enormous rucksack (mostly full of books and his cuddly Spiderman) and a horrible cold plastic bag which turned out to contain a dead fish that he had caught and which he was bringing home for dinner. The scent of this in the warm car enlivened the journey home somewhat, and he told me cheery tales of dormitories and common rooms and then played at being a goat on the iPad until he felt sick and we had to open the window, which helped a bit with the fish smell as well.
When we got him home we sat him down in the kitchen for a Motivational Talk. This is because we have had a succinct communication this week from the Headmaster which explained that our son and heir is quite simply not going to get to Eton at present level of performance. I am fairly sanguine about this, he can always go to Gordonstoun, better families than mine have had to swallow the realisation that their offspring is thick as a plank and had better learn to do cold showers and cross country ready to go into the Army, rather than Latin and Politics ready to be the Government. Mark, however, was not at all pleased, and has spent the last week pondering Oliver’s levels of educational attainment, and come to the stark conclusion that he is an idle toe rag.
Anyone who has ever managed to dream up the correct thing to say to a nine year old to make him a beavering example of effort when his natural inclination is towards farting about with lots of other small farting about boys, please let me know in the comments at the bottom. Oliver wanted to get on with watching Vamoss on YouTube and so agreed instantly that he wasn’t making any effort and promised cheerfully and untruthfully to try harder and buzzed off to get on with something far more interesting than his parents’ laboured explanations about how his choices were shaping his destiny, leaving Mark brimming with unspoken frustrated wisdom and an anxiety which is probably the fruit of his own school endeavours.
Oliver is very sweet: but I think on the whole I am inclined to agree with the Headmaster. He sat on Mark’s knee (Oliver, not the Headmaster, obviously) and told us all about school including a detailed explanation of his activities in DT, which is apparently taught by somebody called Superperson Smith. He told us that they were making a jigsaw puzzle in the shape of their initial, and his was complicated because it was S.
“But,” said Mark, after a puzzled silence, “S isn’t your initial.”
“Yes it is,” said Oliver. “S for Simon.”
“Your name isn’t Simon,” Mark said.
“Oh,” said Oliver, vaguely and without much interest, “I thought it was.”
Gordonstoun sounds fantastic.
