Failed parent

Late night and late start: but the sun was shining and it was warm. We strolled blissfully round the Library Gardens with the dog soaking up the sunshine like newly-released prisoners. It is so beautiful now, every day is a little bit different.

Lucy was due back at school today, so we all went for a lunchtime farewell pizza in a guilty attempt to compensate for being rotten parents during her precious few days at home. She said that she didn’t care because we are dull company and she had got plenty of things of her own that she wanted to do, but I felt rubbish anyway, because we have been out on the taxi rank for fourteen hours every day whilst she has been home, and then asleep for most of the rest of the time: so we sat outside the little bistro in the sunshine eating excellent pizzas whilst the dog milled about contentedly under the table: and enjoyed having an entertaining pretty daughter for the last hour before she had to go away.

When we got back I went for half an hour’s sleep before the drive over to York and Mark went off to work. Lucy woke me up when it was time to set off by creeping into the bedroom in the dark and then leaping on me and shouting “Surprise!” and then laughing so much I though that her ribs might crack: which made me feel slightly less regretful that she was leaving.

She spent the drive over revising for her mid-term chemistry exam: which was depressing. I spent several years studying chemistry at school, admittedly without any great interest or enthusiasm: but when it came to remembering any of it, it turned out to be entirely untrue that it would all come flooding back, because it spectacularly didn’t.

She wanted me to help explain some of the things that she thought needed some clarification.

I tried my best, but it didn’t take very long before I realised that I have forgotten it all.

I no longer have the first idea how you would go about balancing an equation, drawing a diagram to illustrate covalent bonding, or calculating the relative mass of anything at all. After a while of my befuddled guessing she rolled her eyes and snorted scornfully, and put her earphones in to drown out my ignorance whilst she read through her notes by herself. I accepted this meekly and sadly as appropriate to my lowly status as an ignorant taxi driver, and reflected how fortunate it was that I had never, ever needed to know the mass of an electron, and that I was in a career where knowing the way to the Windermere Manor Hotel was sufficient background knowledge to guarantee success.

Once in York we made a blissful stop at the shopping centre so that Lucy could replenish her tuck box at Cadbury’s and I could buy the longed-for striped jacket I had seen at the beginning of the holiday, which fortunately was just as desirable at the end of the weekend as it had been at the beginning.

This does not always happen, there have been inexplicable times when I have seen and bought clothes that I have liked very much, but then several days later been completely unable to understand why, as if either the clothes or my taste have had a complete transformation. This is unfortunate and embarrassing when it happens, because then I have either got to explain to Mark why I have got an expensive garment that I never wear, or wear something that feels indescribably hideous and just put up with it. As I think I might have told you, I am not very good at getting clothes right at the best of times: there have been some outfits which with the benefit of hindsight, I think may have been grave mistakes.

Anyway this was not the case this time. I tried the jacket on again and felt happy, and bought a mint-coloured linen shirt to go with it, which made me feel even happier, because they are the sort of clothes that can be worn with almost completely everything and not accidentally clash, so I think that I can wear them and feel quite certain that nobody will be laughing. Now I need a parents’ evening or something similar to happen at one of their schools so that I can go and try it out.

I took Lucy back to school then, which was amazing. The blossoms are out everywhere, and the scent wasn’t just there to be caught on the breeze, but heavy in the air, enveloping everything and utterly intoxicating. I stood for ages and just breathed it in, almost dizzy with the overwhelmingness of it: but Lucy was impatient to get back to her friends, and indeed when we got inside everywhere was already beginning to be full of shrieking, giggling girls, all of whom seemed delighted to be reunited with Lucy.

When we got back up to her dorm she said: “I suppose you forgot to get a prize for the raffle, didn’t you? I knew you would,” and of course she was right.

I felt so awful I almost handed over my new jacket, but common sense prevailed, and I just looked guilty in the manner of failed parents, and then she did the burning coals thing by giving me a little elephant and a candle holder she had bought as a present for me, and I was truly shamed.

I am a rotten parent. I promised Oliver I would post his football back to him this week and I haven’t done that either.

I will try harder.