We have got Oliver.
It is half term.
We had got to get up in the middle of the night. School had organised a concert for ten, which meant that we had to leave at eight, which meant that we had to set the alarm for six.
Regular readers will know that this is not an unusual time for us to be getting into bed. It is difficult to regulate one’s inner clock efficiently under such wildly fluctuating circumstances, a bit like being a pilot only without the wages or stewardesses.
Obviously when we woke up we were tired. We were more tired because Mark had not slept properly because of worrying about the alarm, and I had not slept properly because of waking up at about three in the morning to find a dog in the bed. He must have been having a nightmare, because he was shivering and feeling unhappy with the world, and I didn’t have the heart to chuck him out. Instead I slept uncomfortably wrapped around a trembling dog and tried to ignore him.
When we woke up Roger Poopy was there as well. We ejected both of them then, and when we had finished our jet-lag tarry coffee we showered the dog smell off and shoved the sheets in the washing machine.
Mark took the dogs off to empty them in the Library Gardens and I had my usual what-to-wear crisis.
It is so easy to be Mark.
I started worrying about clothes yesterday, and he said: “I’ll just wear a linen shirt and chinos.” End of problem.
I look fat in all my clothes, This is because I eat too much. There is no point in trying to find clothes in which I will not look fat, the secret would be to go on a diet. Since I have not done that I know that I will look fat. This would not be so bad if I was not also going to combine it with my ghastly and undeniable lack of taste.
I have discussed this before on these pages. As you undoubtedly remember, I have got no idea whatsoever what is tasteful and sophisticated and what is not. I know, for instance, because I have been told, that some people would not like to go anywhere in our camper van, but I can’t really understand why, because I think it is the loveliest van on earth. If it were somebody else’s I would be dying of envy.
This is evidence that I am not good at judging what is tasteful and sleek and sophisticated.
Also I really like lovely bright colours, especially all together, and the brighter the better. I know that I am not supposed to wear these but am not sure why. I have been told that purple and green do not go together, and I have remembered that, but I can’t see any reason for this. Likewise orange and pink.
I would happily wear a combination of all four and the only thing that stops me is that I have already been told that I must not. I have to take great care to remember these jewels of useful advice whilst I am getting dressed.
In the end I managed to organise a combination of a pink shirt and jeans without any paint anywhere, in which I only looked acceptably fat, and some boots. This turned out to be insufferably hot by the end of the morning, but I thought that probably my face would either match or clash with my shirt, and so it would be all right.
The thing is that the mothers at Oliver’s school are so very good at looking cool and breezy and effortlessly elegant. I have got no idea how they do it. I would look ridiculous dressed in a patchwork dress and beaded sandals, or sailor-leggings and stripy top: but they don’t.
Also I think several of them might have been on diets. I like eating too much to do this. Fortunately I am not called Lady Somebody, and to my enormous relief, nobody is ever looking at me.
We had a concert, which was funny. I am a fan of school productions, the capacity for entertainment is boundless. It did not disappoint. Lots of boys bounding around and nudging one another, accompanied on the piano by the music master, who leaves me weak-kneed with admiration every time I hear him. He is a whole world of passion and humour and joy all expressed in music. I never talk to him. He goes pale and looks the other way when he sees mothers approaching.
Some of the boys were ace. They have a collection of wigs to compensate for the absence of girls. These are as tidy and cared for as you might expect a girl’s wig to be in a boys’ school.
We laughed our heads off, and clapped until our hands hurt, and at the interval we found Oliver. Obviously by then I was just welling with happiness, and had stopped caring in the least what anybody thought about me. We hugged each other with the best sort of pleased feeling, how brilliant to have our boy back at home.
He is here. It is the best happiness in the world.
We looked at the school when we got there and thought that we could not ever have hoped for a better childhood for our boy. There is a picture at the top.
Life is ace.
