I took Lucy back to school today.
We were woken up by the alarm going off about an hour after we went to bed, and Mark staggered downstairs to make coffee. Number Two Daughter got up as well, because of going to Liverpool to play in a rugby match, and we discovered to our great surprise that the excitement had been too much for Lucy, and despite it still being long before lunchtime, she was already up and dressed and showered.
We loaded the car, which filled the boot. Oliver takes one bag and his tuck box to school. Lucy had bags and baskets and trunks and a rucksack, and even so we discovered at around Kendal that she had forgotten several crucially important things such as all of her Mandarin course work and also all of her jerseys. I was too impatient to get on with the journey to make a U-turn and start all over again, and so now I will have to hunt it out and post it all tomorrow,
She considered making a start on her neglected holiday prep in the car on the way to school, but fortuitously received a text from one of her dorm mates which said something along the lines of “OH MY GOD I HAVEN’T DONE ANY PREP” which reassured her into not bothering.
She was supposed to have read ‘Pride And Prejudice’ over the holidays. She had made a start on it in her first week, but after a couple of chapters decided that they were a ridiculously tiresome family and she didn’t like any of them, and could perfectly well understand why nobody had ever wanted to marry them. Also, as she pointed out, not a single interesting thing happened to any of them, no vampires, no stabbings, no sex, nothing worth reading about at all: so what on earth was the point?
I was stumped by this one, and wondered whether Jane Austen might have intended to highlight the tedium of a woman’s life at the time, and Lucy said that might be the case, but why on earth would she think that anybody would want to read about tedium, especially if their lives were tedious in the first place? and added that she had borrowed my copy of the first book in the Game of Thrones series, which looked far more promising.
I am very glad that getting her through her Eng Lit GCSE is not my problem.
We met up with Nan and Grandad for the customary lunch, which was a cheery affair and Grandad had kindly brought a book to lend to me. I am having difficulty not diving into this straight away, because it is about troops in Helmand Province and looks like a magnificently gripping read, maybe I should have more sympathy with Lucy.
We ate enormous lunches: I had creamy pasta with a thick layer of bubbling cheese and huge wedges of savoury-smelling crispy garlic bread. We had wine and pudding and coffee, which left the waistband of my jeans groaning in an appeal for mercy, no wonder I am round, I will go on a diet next week.
After that it was time for goodbyes.
She is in the Fifth Form boarding house. It is at the back of the school, separate from the rest, because of exam pressures, and surrounded by beautifully kept lawns and huge shady trees, it is lovely.
We made her bed up with fresh linens, it is next to a huge window, and looked soft and homely when we had finished. There are four girls in each dorm, and they share a study, each girl has her own desk and shelves and space to get on with her life peacefully: and at the end of the corridor there is a kitchen and common room with fat sofas for communal squealing and talking about boys.
It is very hard to say goodbye. I know that school feeds her and looks after her and teaches her and supports her far, far better than I can, and I know that she loves it and is superlatively happy there: but still I felt the selfish longing to carry her back home and preserve our little family just a bit longer.
She kindly allowed a few moments of affection to break through her teenage-girl reserve as we said goodbye, and then she dived off into the scrum of excited squeaking, and was gone, and I chugged back through the beautiful grounds alone.
Oliver goes on Wednesday.
Number Two Daughter took the picture this morning as we left, but it hasn’t come out as well as it might have. Also it will probably be upside down on everybody’s computer. I have got no idea why this happens, it will be something technical I expect.
