Mark got up early this morning to carry on doing things to his taxi, and I stayed in bed on account of having worked late.
He tried quite hard to make sure I wasn’t disturbed, he fed Oliver and took the dogs out for a walk, and then thoughtfully closed the bedroom door behind him to make sure I was left in peace.
I was woken up about ten minutes after he left by the dogs whimpering sadly on the landing, where it turned out that they were standing forlornly with their noses pressed against the shut door.
In the end I got up to let them in, and we were joyously reunited and they thought they would come and lie on the bed and keep me warm and protect me from anybody walking past.
I lasted almost an hour of fitful dozing in between having my ears kindly licked, and being squashed cozily between two warm furry snoring creatures, and occasionally being woken up with a violent start as they sprang into excited wakefulness to bark loudly and warn passing pedestrians not to come and burgle us.
I got up then, to find a long and detailed note from Mark on the sink in the bathroom, explaining that something or other was wrong with the shower and what I must do in order to achieve optimum warm wetness from it. I peered at it blearily for a while and in the end just switched it on and got on as usual, which seemed to work splendidly, so maybe he is getting early onset Alzheimer’s.
It was one of those just-beginning-to-turn-golden early Autumn days, warm mellow sunshine and bees humming lazily around the fennel, it has been lovely. Everything is slowly coming to its end now, and the colours in the garden are splendid, vivid orange and scarlet and dark russet reds.
I have washed all the linens out of the camper, so that it will all be fresh and ready for our exciting French trip in October, and I have had all the sheets pegged out on the line today, billowing nicely in the breeze just over the top of the garden.
I cut the grass this morning, because Mark has been too busy, and I made a bit of a pig’s ear of it and almost cut a worm in half that had stuck its head up out of a hole, and there seem to be a lot of black earthy patches that don’t look quite right: but the smell of cut grass had clung to the sheets when I brought them in, and I stood there for ages, just breathing it in and feeling happy.
Lucy goes back tomorrow. We spent ages in the loft, packing and unpacking and re-packing, and sitting on her trunk to get it shut. I have written her name in all her new shoes and sprayed them with a waterproofing spray. I have sewn name labels in absolutely everything, down to the last sock, packed her jerseys and her tuck box and her lacrosse stick, and I felt proud and wistful and delighted and sad all at once.
When Mark came in we enlisted his help to haul it all downstairs. There is a disorderly pile of luggage in the living room that looks as though we have stolen it from New Delhi railway station.
I went to work after that, and Mark took the dogs and went off to the farm to finish the car, leaving the children for their last afternoon together. Oliver has still got another few days, but after Lucy has gone then we start school runs on Monday, and the term has started really.
The best of everything we can possibly manage is packed to go away with them, pressed and fresh and scented with lavender: we are sending our small travellers away with all the love they can carry. The new school year is such a monumental new beginning for them. Lucy starts on her GCSEs this year, she is so nearly grown up. Oliver will be in Form Two, not one of the little boys any more: another year closer to Common Entrance.
I miss them a lot when they are gone.
For the first couple of days, anyway.
