Wet rock

It rained today.

We had got Oliver at home, accompanied by Harry, so we couldn’t dawdle about in bed for too long this morning, on account of needing to provide boy sustenance.

We organised brioche for them and then retreated upstairs to drink coffee in bed and talk happily about the excitement of yesterday.

We had such a good time. Oliver’s school does their sporting events so very well, the games master is a sturdy ex-Sedbergh rugger chap, and is brilliant. I once had a passenger in my taxi who had been at school with him, and at whose wedding he had been best man. He howled with laughter at the reflection that a host of small boys now addressed him as ‘sir’, and told me some captivating and horrifying stories about their youthful exploits together which I thought I had better never repeat to a living soul, apart from Mark, of course, to whom I tell absolutely everything. Privately we have always thought of the games master as Big Gordy ever since.

It was wonderful to have a quiet few minutes just to let yesterday’s adventures sink in, especially accompanied by coffee with milk in it. However Windermere’s weekend of elderly rock musicians continued today with 10cc playing on the Glebe, supported by an Abba tribute band and an Elvis impersonator, so in the end we had got to get up and go to work in readiness for the inevitable hordes who would find such a line up irresistible.

We fed Oliver and Harry and the dogs, and tidied up the debris from yesterday’s dashing about, and eventually had to go in search of income.

It was pouring with rain, water gushing from every downspout and drainpipe, and when we got down the hill into Bowness we discovered that poor 10cc were in fact playing an afternoon concert, and were getting completely drenched.

There was a small and unhappy audience huddled together in front of the stage, umbrellas having been prohibited for some reason best known to Bowness Town Council, probably in order to preserve the failing eyesight of the gathered audience of elderly rockers, some of whom were in their seventies and supported on crutches, and who could quite easily have fallen victim to unguarded umbrella spokes in a careless moment of head banging.

We could hear it all quite clearly from the taxi rank, and enjoyed it all very much, especially since unlike the audience we were quite dry, and also had a flask of tea. I have only ever really heard one song done by 10cc before today, and I can’t actually remember what that was, but they made an astonishingly enthusiastic noise under the circumstances, and I was very impressed with them.

Once the concert was over we had a busy hour taking a very wet audience back home, and then decided that probably the night’s business had drawn to a close. In any case we were still suffering from the sort of tiredness that afflicts elderly people who have attempted to mess about with their sleeping pattern: so we went home early instead, to remind Oliver who we were.

Harry had disappeared, having education to attend in the morning, and Oliver wanted to watch a film called The Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, so we chucked the dogs off the sofa and tried to remember how to download films.

I shan’t tell you about the film, although I think it would probably be impossible to spoil it no matter what secrets I gave away. Even Oliver thought that it lacked subtlety of plot. If you imagine a few virtuous and innately heroic Americans, and a few equally virtuous but oppressed and mistrusted apes, and a couple of misled baddies of both species and lots of opportunities to rescue misfortunate females and babies from terrible fates then you can probably piece the rest of the story together for yourself.

All the same it was very pleasant indeed to be so effortlessly entertained, I never get fed up of being able to have any film of my choice in my front room whenever I like, we live in an utterly splendid world.

The picture is my garden before the rain started this morning. It still looks like that but very much wetter now.