It has been a very busy day.
It has been so busy that we have both had to have a little sleep before we came to work.
We have retrieved the children from school.
We went for Oliver first, which took ages, because as you may recall, he has a friend accompanying him.
His friend is Russian, although you wouldn’t know it: his English is faultless, or at least faultless in the sense that any ten year old boy has faultless English: it is loaded with prep-school slang and lots of groans and sick-noises.
It took them ages to find everything that they needed to bring home, because of ten-year-old boy packing not being the most organised activity. They dashed up and down the stairs to retrieve things they had forgotten until finally we could load them into the car and go.
They talked all the way down the motorway. I have no idea what prompts people to become teachers. They kept up an incessant stream of cheerful whittering for the whole journey, during which we learned absolutely nothing of any interest or importance whatsoever, a bit like listening to robins squabbling in the park.
It was a relief to arrive at the pub for Nan and Grandad and Lucy, and sensible conversation. The pub kindly allowed us to plug the boys’ computers in to charge them up, which was a huge bonus, because of keeping them peacefully occupied on the journey home.
I was not in the least sorry to be confronted with a large glass of wine, and I can jolly well tell you that had we not had work looming large in front of us, it would have been the first of many, followed by a snooze in the car park. Unfortunately it is the weekend so no such opportunity was going to arise, so we had to behave with restraint and then drive home.
It was lovely to be all together, with Nan and Grandad and the children, even if we were a slightly larger and very much noisier party than usual. Lucy told us about being in the fifth form, which is much more grown-up and less supervised than ever before, and Oliver and his friend told us occasional fragments of stories before becoming distracted by dead-arms and fisticuffs and disappearing under the table.
I can’t begin to understand why anybody complains about children being anti-social and glued to their computer screens. Once the boys computers were recharged and we set off for home they descended into a peaceful zombie-massacring almost-silence that was a joy to hear. Apart from the occasional brief outburst of violence and giggles they remained firmly plugged in for the entire journey, whilst Mark put his foot down and I dozed fitfully on the front seat.
They bounded off upstairs when we arrived home, and Mark fell asleep on the sofa. Lucy and I dispatched him off upstairs to bed and we emptied the dogs and she helped me get organised for work. She is still trying to read ‘Pride & Prejudice’ she explained that it was hard work because she had got to page 204 and still nothing at all has happened yet. I expect the vampire attacks happen in the final chapters.
I woke Mark up and we abandoned the children in order to go off to work, but we were sad to leave them really. They are such good company, it is lovely to have them home.
A weekend is so very short.
