It has been a gorgeous sunny day and there are flowers everywhere. Mark brought some currant blossom home, it smells splendid and is making me feel pleased every time I pass it.
The end of the holidays are looming large now. Poor Oliver came downstairs this morning plunged into profound gloom by the sudden realisation of exactly how much homework he should have done before now, and we had a discussion about his preferred plan of action from here.
Having not done his homework there was no point in being upset about it, he had got to choose, did he want to continue playing zombie-massacre games and face the inevitable earache at school? Did he want to do just enough to stay out of trouble and then head back upstairs to his cyber-bloodbath, or did he want to abandon the undead and just get on with maths and Latin for a few days?
Rather to my surprise, after some consideration he chose the latter, and buzzed off upstairs with Mark to tidy his bedroom and to apply himself to the pursuit of knowledge.
Several hours later he had achieved dozens of complicated looking maths questions and a tidy bedroom, which pleased him so much that he felt justified in taking a break and buzzed off to the farm with Mark and the dogs and his crossbow.
I took Lucy for a haircut.
She has decided that if she is going to have to do GCSEs then she does not wish to have to waste a single precious moment of idleness in washing or brushing her hair.
We went to the hairdresser to get it cut short.
She considered having her entire head shaved, rather like Mark’s, but was dissuaded at the prospect of having to explain the desirability of this style to the headmistress, and instead, after prolonged consultation with squeaky, giggly people on Facetime, elected to have a short cut with a floppy fringe.
Our hairdresser is truly lovely and listened patiently to her description of something short but not shocking, over her face but not in her eyes, and my explanation that we would prefer it if she was not expelled.
He layered her hair expertly, whilst I exchanged teenager stories with his friendly wife. She had come into town to get her fingernails painted and to visit TK Maxx, but had come to visit the salon as she had misfortunately run out of cash halfway through the process.
I admired this enormously. I can’t bear having my fingernails touched by anybody, so would have to think of something to replace the manicure part of the day, but it did strike me as being a very civilised way to spend a day off. Her fingernails had been beautifully painted, like pale polished ovals, and also it was obvious that she did not ever cut her own fringe in front of the bathroom mirror with the toenail scissors in an emergency.
I was sorry when she tootled back off to continue exploring the retail satisfactions of Kendal, and I was left to entertain myself with a copy of Cosmopolitan magazine. I liked this in my youth, but it has become a bit startling now that I am elderly.
I absorbed myself in frank accounts of surprisingly-placed tattoos and lesbian divorce and the exchange of used underwear for rent, until Lucy was done.
She looked jolly good.
She was very pleased with herself, and marvelled in her new lightness and freedom all the way home.
Mark came home by himself, Oliver having stayed at the farm to play some sort of marauding game with his cousin. He turned up after we had gone to work, having been thoroughly fed and exhausted.
When I called in at home he was busy with more homework.
It will be the last night we are all at home.
We have had such a lovely holiday.
