I took Lucy shopping this morning, to buy some Suitable Shorts for her school trip to the Ardeche, which leaves on Sunday.
You may remember that she has already been shopping once, with Number One Daughter, for this sort of thing, and come home with some Entirely Unsuitable Shorts that barely cover her knickers, and also some Equally Unsuitable Tops, which in my opinion hardly qualify as underwear, never mind provide adequate coverage to deter mosquitoes, sunburn and young men from Liverpool.
She was not at all enthusiastic for this project, feeling that shorts which reached her knees were not interesting enough purchases to merit her attention. The list said she had to have three pairs, which cost me thirty five quid and which she looked at as though I was buying her woollen tights and a wimple and scapular. I have said that she can take the original ones with her as well, it isn’t as if they will take up much space in her luggage, and then it is the teacher’s problem to enforce decency any way he can think of, and good luck to him, that’s all I can say.
Oliver and Mark and the dogs were not interested in this project either, and buzzed off to the farm. They have been sawing up logs and building walls and Oliver is practising his shooting.
Mark says that he is actually a very good shot indeed, he has got bored with stationary targets and so they put a baked bean can on a bit of string for him from the barn roof, and he shot it straight away and got bored, so they have reduced the size of target to a spark plug, which is managing to hold his interest.
Of course he has had years of practice massacring zombies in his Undead Ghastly Nightmare Bloodlust Destruction game on his PS3, so it isn’t surprising, and indeed may be handy if ever the civilised world comes to an end as I have noticed lately that it seems to do quite often in films. Under these circumstances it will probably be useful to be a crack shot. Also it is one of the minimum qualifications for being a hero, as well as a helicopter pilot’s licence, off road dangerous terrain motorcycling abilities and a tidy wardrobe.
Mark has been rebuilding some dry stone walls and was complaining about backache. I spent the afternoon at work, and despite sunshine and Lucy’s book about clockwork vampires, I had had enough by teatime, so we went for an early swim during the horrible hours when children are allowed at the BeautifulMe Holistic Therapy Luxury Wellness Spa, but it didn’t help much as the children dived on him and shrieked and splashed about, and by the time we had finished we were a lot more exhausted than after our usual thrash up and down the pool: all we do usually is swim for three quarters of a mile and collapse in the sauna, it is civilised and dignified and there are neither sharks nor pirates anywhere in sight.
By the end of the day after all our exertions we were worn out, and gathered together in the kitchen to examine Oliver’s newly-arrived school report.
“What’s quirky?” he asked after one comment.
“It means you’re weird,” his sister explained helpfully, from the perspective of one whose own school report glowed so improbably brightly you had to turn the light off to read it.
After the school report we all increased our holiday resolve to continue with Oliver’s extra tuition, to his deep gloom, and Lucy suggested that he taught her to shoot by way of an exchange, so that is the plan for tomorrow. Mark is busy at the farm at the moment, and so I am working during the days and we are both working at night.
Tonight was quiet, although our fortunes were considerably helped along when the delivery van for the local pizza shop broke down, and we nobly stepped into the breach. It is almost midnight now, and we have just about given up and are going to go to bed, which will mean that we will probably manage to do the school runs after we have woken up in the morning, instead of before.
So all is well that ends well.
