Boots

Today has been Oliver’s birthday.

It is eleven years since we produced him, by ourselves in a French farmhouse, except for Number One Daughter and Lucy, who quite frankly weren’t a great deal of help.

We sent him a card and some books. We didn’t send him a present because it is not acceptable to send zombie massacre killing games, certificate eighteen and then only if you have got a strong stomach, to school, Matron would not be at all impressed. Therefore we had an agreement that his present would wait until he came home next time.

I emailed him this morning, which he has ignored, and hoped vaguely that he might call this evening, which he didn’t, and so his entire birthday has passed without communication. This is fine with me really, since I imagine that he would have called if he had wanted anything, and also I know that school does a jolly good effort with cakes and happy moments. I thought about it a bit, especially remembering some of the more gruesome moments of producing him, but apart from that it is only a day, he would have phoned if he had wanted to talk to us.

In the absence of talking to Oliver I cleaned all of the bedrooms and bathrooms. This is a tedious job but lovely when it is done and everywhere is white and gleaming. After that I made a cake with bananas and walnuts, because weekend is almost upon us and we will need picnics, but also because nobody is eating fruit since Number Two Daughter left and the bananas were going black and horridly squashy in the fruit bowl. There are two left so I will be making curry tomorrow.

The afternoon was enlivened by a call from Number One Daughter, who was bored at work, so much for the Army being an exciting career the way they pretend it is in their advertisements. I helped her fill in the time by telling her what I wanted for Christmas and in case she hadn’t got the point, directing her to the website.

The website, we agreed, is one of the loveliest in the world. It is called Celtic & Co, and it is a good place to go if you think that you have got everything you could possibly want, because you will very quickly see that you haven’t.

It is full of splendid things like little sheepskin slippers shaped like ballet shoes with pretty ribbons, and soft enveloping lambswool jerseys. There was a very beautiful coat which we did not bother wanting because it cost a thousand pounds, and in any case Number One Daughter said that it would make me look like Paddington, so it was a good job I hadn’t already bought it.

We looked for ages, because I did not want to go and scrape black mould off the bedroom window sill, and she did not want to go and kill people, or whatever soldiers do at work on Thursday afternoons.

I showed her the boots that I am longing to buy when something wonderful happens to my finances. and whilst we were looking we discovered some other beautiful boots that made Number One Daughter sigh in impoverished discontent as well. We decided that we would ask everybody for vouchers to put towards buying boots for Christmas, but I won’t really, because as well as boots I want things like Chanel soap and Hotel Chocolats and it would be a shame to miss those, which make me happy every Christmas.

In any case the boots are too expensive to have for a Christmas present unless you are related to Donald Trump, which I am not. The thing that I was hoping to have for Christmas and excitedly showed to Number One Daughter is a pair of sheepskin-lined flip flops. This made Number One Daughter laugh a great deal, but she agreed that they were a good idea so I can live in hope now. After that somebody started shouting things in an Army voice in the background so she buzzed off to see what they wanted, and I had to go back to the black mould.

It is nearly, nearly Christmas now, and it is so exciting.

I am looking forward to it no end.

The picture is of us having banana cake as a last thing to do before bed. It was a happy moment.