Children

It is the most lovely day.

The sun is shining, the world is on holiday, and the children have come home.

They are tall, and suntanned, and happy, and Oliver is absolutely drenched in freckles. They dived on one another and rolled over together like puppies, shrieking and laughing and beating each other up. It is an absolute joy to have our little family all together again, and Mark and I didn’t at all want to leave them to go to work.

I had a meeting at Lucy’s school about her summer canoeing trip, so I went to collect her and Mark went for Oliver. When I got to Lucy’s school for the meeting I couldn’t find her anywhere, because it turned out that she had forgotten that it was half term, that I was coming, and that we were going to go to a meeting and then go home, and she had just gone for her lunch as usual.

She was very pleasantly surprised when a teacher came and dragged her away from her salad to bring her to sit next to me whilst another teacher talked to us all enthusiastically about sun tan lotion and sleeping bags. It took us a while to get away after that, because she had to dash off to her dorm to pack, which she hadn’t, and so it was quite late in the day before we got home.

It was a lovely journey. She told me about chemistry and mandarin and paintballing and ballet lessons and offered to help Oliver with his spelling. I told her about driving a taxi and her grandparents coming to visit, and she thought that my life sounded dull and explained that hers would be far more exciting once she got to it, which I suppose it might well be.

It took ages, because of lots of people coming to the Lake District for the bank holiday, and after a couple of hours she got bored and put her earphones in, and I drove and looked at the scenery, which was lovely, because the hedgerows are full of cowslips and bluebells and hawthorn and forget-me-nots. The gypsies have started to arrive for Appleby Fair, and the first horses and vardoes and little campfires are starting to cluster along the roadside grass verges: and occasionally I looked over at Lucy and felt very pleased to have her back again.

When we got back Oliver and Mark were already home, and Oliver had torn his uniform off and scrambled into his homely old cut-off shorts and camouflage t-shirt, showing long, brown, thin legs and enormous feet, like a greyhound puppy.

He had ridden round the block on his bike and eaten about a hundredweight of crisps and chocolate for lunch, because he isn’t allowed them at school and so when he gets home the first couple of hours have got to make up for it. There was luggage strewn all over the place, and I heard all about Oliver being hit on the head by a stray cricket ball and still just about managing not to be given a penalty for his spelling, and that the form One and Two school play this year was going to be ‘Annie’, which struck me as an adventurous choice for an all boys’ prep school: and he asked Lucy what an essay was and if she could write one for him because he has got to do one for his holiday prep.

Lucy suggested diplomatically that perhaps they could write it together, which was kind, although I suspect that neither of them is very likely to do much essay writing, especially since the sun is shining.

They both rejected my suggestion of warmed-up shepherd’s pie for dinner, so they had pizza and we had shepherd’s pie, and then they took the dog for a walk, and we went to work.

It is very busy, because it is the bank holiday weekend, and everybody is here. We sat on the taxi rank in between customers and shared our flask of tea and talked about how lovely the children are, and just to prove a point, Number One Daughter rang up to say that she is not far away and suggested that she took Lucy shopping tomorrow, which Lucy will like because she doesn’t think much of my shopping abilities.

It is so nice to have children. I am so glad they are here.

If Number Two Daughter is reading this then I would be glad if you were here as well, and no, I don’t love any of them more than you. Take no notice of any of them. I don’t have favourites. Honestly.