I do love the winter clock.
We woke up early and we seemed to have for ever to get things done. This was especially nice, because as you know, we were in York today.
We had lots of time for a leisurely cup of tea in bed, which was our own spiced chai, not some ghastly mixture provided by the hotel.
After this, any day which starts off with bacon and scrambled eggs and hash browns is off to the most auspicious of beginnings, and it did not let itself down.
York was gorgeous. It seemed to be zombie-apocalypse quiet, and was blissfully warm in the autumn sunshine. It is the most lovely of cities, with narrow medieval streets fanning out from the vast glory of the Minster, and we wandered contentedly around them all, gazing around us in perfect happiness.
Our first job was to organise cards and presents for the youths whose birthday party was the purpose of our visit. After some discussion we had elected to purchase book tokens for them all, partly because it meant we had an excuse for our usual holiday visit to the bookshop.
Lack of funds meant that it was a somewhat curtailed visit, but you will be happy to hear that we were not obliged to be completely restrained. This was due to some loyalty card points which we had prudently been saving to cheer us up on a dreary bookless day, so in the end it was a joyful little visit, with all of us adding a new book to the collection. Oliver is collecting a series of pictorial books called Attack on Titan, which he loves, and Mark and I bought some interesting books about the way the world works.
We came out feeling very pleased with our world, and made our next stop Hotel Chocolat, where we didn’t have any loyalty points, although we thought we deserved them. All the same we were on holiday, and bought ourselves some powders which you add to milk to make hot chocolate. Ours had chilli in it, and Oliver’s didn’t, which we all thought was sensible, and we thought we would save them for when we got the camper van going, as a celebration.
After that we just looked at things. We found a fur shop where we all tried on the softest white hats and the lady looked suspiciously at Oliver’s hands and then at the hats, for traces of boy-sticky, although fortunately he was rather cleaner than usual because of going back to school.
We looked in the candle shop where we bought a candle in the sale last year but decided that they were out of our price range since they were not in the sale any more, to our great regret we could not by any amount of calculation find ninety quid spare to buy a candle, even one with bits of dried oranges in it. We found a magnificent shop which sold real swords, one of which was the sort of sword from Attack On Titan, much to Oliver’s delight.
He had a long chat with the youth in charge of the shop, who was a fascinating sort, with two earrings in his bottom lip and a bandanna on his head. I found it difficult to concentrate on the things that he was saying because of wondering about the earrings, and whether they made it difficult to eat politely, although of course I didn’t ask. He and Oliver recognised many mutual interests, none of which rang any bells of recognition with me, and Oliver came out practically skipping with happiness.
We took Oliver to his party and looked around a bit more, and found a breathtakingly fragranced Indian spice shop, where we bought bags of cardamom and star anise at prices so astonishingly cheap we could hardly believe it: it brought memories of India washing over us as we walked through the door.
We bought joss sticks at a little shop which sold brightly coloured cotton mats, which we didn’t buy because I resolved to make one some time soon when I am not busy.
We bought a pack of gorgeously coloured spaghetti, longer than any I have ever seen, at a little Italian delicatessen. We almost bought some black spaghetti as well, but decided not to be quite that adventurous when we learned that the black colour came from squid ink, which I thought might not turn out to be amongst my favourite flavours. We should have bought it, of course, because now we shall never know.
We gazed in awe at the Minster and at the stout curtain of defensive walls, and felt happy to be in the city, in the pale sunshine among the falling leaves. It felt like a time of true serendipity, because it was so much nicer than driving frantically to York and back again in time for work, twice. We were glad we had been reckless, even though it will take us a while to catch up with ourselves.
We collected Oliver, who had had an ace party, hurtling petrol go karts around a race track with all of his friends, and drove slowly back to school through the gathering dusk.
He has gone, and we have got no children at home for the first time in months.
It is going to be weird.
