Maytime

We have come back to Windermere, and it is lovely, vivid Springtime green and laden with white blossom. It feels like Maytime ought to do, fresh and hopeful and full of youth and promise.

Of course we were not here for the beginning of the day. We collected Lucy from her school at lunchtime. We had to wait ages because she was in an exam, so we hung around the science corridor absorbing Interesting Facts from the posters on the walls. In the end she turned up, dragging an enormous rucksack full of prep she needed to do, and her laptop and a huge relieved smile.

It was lovely to see her. She has got a big lump on her head from a tennis-related mishap, and has somehow become as tall as me, but her eyes were clear and bright, and her hair was shiny, and she was beautiful, and happy, and tired and very pleased to be coming home.

The dog was so especially surprised and pleased when we returned to the camper van with Lucy in tow that he almost turned inside out with the joy of wagging so hard. It took us ages to set off, because we were so enthralled by listening to everything she had to say. In the end we decided that we would go and have lunch out together, because there is always so much to hear, so much news to catch up with, that even after hours of talking it still feels as if we haven’t heard half of it.

We went to Wagamama for lunch, which was as pleasantly entertaining as eating noodles with disposable chopsticks always is, but Mark thought it was too expensive and the wine was not great. It didn’t matter, though, because Lucy talked our ears off. We heard how she hit the ball in a rounders match and surprised everybody, and how she thinks she would rather learn Korean than Arabic, and that she needed me to buy all sorts of things before she went back to school after the exeat, and that she likes her dorm mates very much but that some of the other girls just never ever stop talking, and that she is going to be in the school play, and will we go and see it? and we listened, and marvelled at the clever things she is learning, and felt very proud of the way she is growing up.

She told us that they are having pretend elections, which I think might turn out to be an entirely pointless exercise, as in an all-girls’ private boarding school I think the result is likely to be fairly predictable, and indeed when we asked Lucy who she was going to vote for, she sniffed in surprise, and said: “Conservative, obviously.” and  then couldn’t name any of the others anyway.

I was curious to know why she felt so strongly, because of course by the time we have another election she will actually be old enough to vote properly, which is a very curious feeling: and she explained that it was because of the mansion tax, of course.

“We haven’t got a mansion,” I pointed out.

She agreed that we hadn’t.

“But I’ll have one, one day,” she explained, “and I don’t want to have to pay tax on it, it would be a complete nuisance. So I’m safeguarding my future.”

We stopped at Marks & Spencer on the way back to replace some of her worn out and outgrown items, because she is not a little girl any more and everything she started off with in September last year has become too small. After that we went into Penhaligon’s to squirt ourselves with nice perfumes to see if there were any that we liked any more than the ones we usually wear, which there weren’t really, although some of them were gorgeous. Lucy wanted to go and look at earrings and I fell in love with a pinstriped jacket in Jaeger which I couldn’t afford.

Mark said afterwards that I was being ridiculous, and the jacket made me look nice, and I should just have bought it and we would just put in some extra hours to pay for it this weekend, but it was too late by then, and I felt sad.

When we got back home he suggested that we call them first thing tomorrow and get them to put it on one side until Monday when I can go back, and that he will put it on his credit card if necessary. This was very kind indeed, as it isn’t often that he puts things on his credit card, as he doesn’t like using it much, so maybe I will do that, because it was a very lovely jacket.

Also it feels nice to know that although I have got three grown up and beautiful daughters he still thinks that it is important that I look pretty as well, even though I am not youthful with sparkling blue eyes and glowing skin any more.

It is a warm sort of feeling.