Today was the end of exeat for Lucy.
I spent the bit of the day when I wasn’t in bed getting our lives a bit more organised, which mostly involved ironing schoolboy uniform, and complaining to Mark about the lack of camper van. I am trying very hard to feel patient and contented about this, but the longing to have our little travelling life back is eating me up from the inside, like the scary creature in the film Alien.
Mark says that he feels just the same, and we thought dolefully about mending taxis for the whole of the next few days, but we have got to do it all the same, otherwise we will have to retire. I would like to do this but would probably have to win the lottery first, which is the only pension plan I have got at the moment.
We are considering the possibility of living in the camper van all summer next year, partly to make up for lost time, as it were, but mostly so that we can rent our house out to people who would like to have a holiday in the Lake District. If we do this for a couple of summertimes we will be able to afford to send Lucy to university if she turns out to be clever enough, which she thinks that she might.
We have discussed this with the children, although not with Mark’s sister, who would obviously be a key player in the whole idea as we would mostly have to park next to Mark’s shed because of the washing machine and handy taxi-repairing space. Also I suppose it is possible that she might not be exactly delighted at the prospect of her brother and his wife, children and dogs playing at being gypsies at the other end of the yard for months.
It would be ace. We could have a charcoal burner and a tajine and it wouldn’t matter if the dogs were smelly.
We would have to think about it quite a bit more anyway, because of the wi-fi, which is not easily available at the farm, it has barely got telephone, never mind advanced fibre-optic communication technology. We talked about the possibilities a bit more this morning. I like the idea very much but it will take some detailed consideration first. Watch this space.
Oliver and Son Of Oligarch do not need to go back to school until tomorrow, so I was obliged to abandon them to their busy day of leaping up and down in front of their computer screens and squeaking at one another, in order to take Lucy back.
Lucy is very sanguine about her GCSE year. I have quizzed her hard, in Anxious Mother style, to make sure she is not suffering from any kind of adolescent angst about it, but she assures me that I have no cause for concern.
I am relieved about this, because it means that I do not need to consider myself to be the failed parent of a conflict-ridden daughter with bitten nails and red-rimmed eyes just yet.
In fact, somewhat to my surprise she is entirely contented with her world at the moment, and the thing looming largest as a forthcoming horror in her mind is not the season of public examinations, but the awful shopping trips we will be obliged to do afterwards in order to kit her out for the non-uniform sixth form.
It was a happy trip back across, she has grown into a very nice human being, and I was sorry to say goodbye to her at the boarding house. We missed her this evening when she was gone, it would be lovely to have the summer in the camper van next year, even if it rains.
The picture is the school drive going to Lucy’s grown-up boarding house. She goes for walks along here when she feels like some peace and quiet.
It is gorgeous to see her so calm and happy.
