We slept for ten hours.
It felt glorious to get up and not be desperate for more sleep. I felt absolutely buoyant, as though I could do anything and that I had no problems at all, both of which are obviously not true.
This made me think that maybe it is not necessarily an entirely good idea to have enough sleep as it might be misleading. Had I acted on my exhilarated full-of-the-joys-of-late-summer feeling this morning I could very easily have spent lots of money that I haven’t got or committed myself to do something brainless like a charity bungee jump.
Fortunately neither of those opportunities presented themselves, but I did pay Lucy’s school fees and phoned Number Two Daughter in Dubai, both of which were fairly reckless and costly activities, especially the latter, as Number Two Daughter has found herself a new job in Japan for the winter and wants to come home for a few weeks so that she can collect her visa from the Japanese Embassy in Edinburgh.
Of course it will be nice to see her, as it is always nice to see returning daughters, and we only ever see Number Two Daughter on very rare occasions. I am disappointed that she is leaving Dubai, as I have long nurtured the impossible hope that one day we will miraculously acquire enough money to go and visit her, and I would like to have been able to loaf about for a week in the wonderful hedonistic luxury available in the world’s biggest playground, and now it is not to be. I don’t have nearly the same longing to visit Japan, which in my mind is vaguely associated with geishas and impossible miniature technology and my father’s military service. Dubai with its theme parks and fountains and penguins and underwater restaurants sounds like much more fun.
After contemplating that interesting piece of news for a while we were obliged to concentrate on the business of the day. Mark set to to mend somebody’s car and I went off to the taxi rank to work. Wednesday is a quiet day, and Mark didn’t join me until the evening: and then we collected Lucy and all had an early finish at ten, which felt almost like having a day off, hardly worth making a flask of tea just for an eight hour day.
We don’t have to get up in the morning. Lucy is not working and Ritalin Boy is not here and we do not have to go anywhere, and nothing is going to happen. We are going to sleep for as long as we want to.
With that in mind the family mood was celebratory, because we have all been tired for weeks. We lit a grateful candle to Eris, cooked an enormous pan of pasta and ate dinner all together at eleven o’clock, and had a bottle of wine in which Lucy was allowed to join, because having lived in France we think that this is a good idea. Oliver refused both the wine and the bits of pasta which had green bits in them. We told each other about our adventures and talked and laughed, and had a lovely evening together: it was one of those enormously contented moments with no outside worries and easy pleasure in each other’s company.
Afterwards we put some music on and all danced noisily and happily around the living room until we collapsed on the sofa with exhaustion, and some satisfaction that we are not our neighbours. Then Mark washed up and I came up here to write to you, and the children went off to get ready for bed.
It is long gone midnight now, and all that is left to do is taking the dogs for a last amble around the Library Gardens in order that they do not decide to wake up too soon during our family lie in tomorrow.
It is so lovely not to be tired. We have had the most splendid evening, dancing together and eating lots and enjoying one another’s company: and now it is time for bed and we have got the unimaginable luxury of sleeping until we have had enough of it.
It is a wonderful night.
