We have got an appointment to see Oliver’s headmaster on Monday afternoon.
I am very pleased about this because I am getting increasingly twitchy about senior schools and would like either to be told not to worry because he will do just fine, or to be told that there is no point in worry because he is never going to achieve spelling his name the same way twice and I might as well just save myself the school fees and sign him up for the Infantry now. I have worked myself up into such a state of anxiety about it that either answer would do just fine.
He sent an e-mail this evening which I have copied and pasted below. I mean that Oliver sent the email, not the headmaster, obviously.
mum i need a ruler and my reading home work and i miss you so so so much last night i coud not sleep ? nothing exsiting so far see you in 14 days love you bye.
Fortunately I had a kind note this morning from one of the other mums reassuring me that she had seen him and he was happy and fine. I was very grateful for this indeed, because it meant that I did not have to leap out of the computer chair and dash across to Yorkshire to rescue him, and Mark just laughed and said that unless Oliver is actually writing to me he is not giving me a thought at all.
I trust Mark who is usually right about Oliver, because they are Two Peas In A Pod, so I have just written back with a promise to send his ruler in the morning. I am not sure what to do about his reading homework, because I am supposed to sign a bit of paper every time he has done some reading, and sometimes I have forgotten, and sometimes Lucy has signed it, and sometimes Mark has heard him read and forgotten and now I have lost the stupid thing anyway and have got a guilty feeling that I am going to have to forge a replacement.
I could not in any case go rushing off to rescue my abandoned boy, because we have got guests coming over this evening.
I am very excited about this, because it feels very grown up and independent not to be tidying up Lego, and to be cooking spiced prawns instead of chicken nuggets and waffles. It is lovely to know that the people for whom you are cooking will not pull faces and spit surreptitiously into the bin, and will not say that it is ghastly and request a banana and milk instead.
We have spent the day cooking exciting grown up food and clearing up all of the post-child debris, the last odd socks have been ferreted out from underneath his bed and we have removed all of the shredded bits of dog sock left over from exciting episodes of The Sock Game. Both dogs are not at all pleased to find that their horrible smelly cushion has been banished to the office, and their chewed fragments of dribble-soaked socks have been dumped in the washing basket.
We are going to have an evening of being civilised grown ups, which will be splendid, our friends who are coming across do not have children, and so will not be at all interested in anxieties about outgrown wellies and whether or not vests are being worn a hundred miles away, but will have interests like philosophy and the state of the universe.
They will be here very soon. I am writing this early because I have got an uneasy suspicion that by the end of the evening I will not be in a fit state to compose diary entries.
We have laid the table with our nice china and Mark has folded the napkins like flowers. I am rubbish at doing this even though he has shown me lots of times. We have lit some nice candles and opened the doors for a while earlier to let the worst of the cooking smells out, so the house has got rid of all of the stale smelly air and is now full of lovely clean air that we are filling with gorgeous bluebell candle and fresh flower scents.
The sun shone today.
Life is on the up.
