I have collected Oliver from school.
It has been a triumphant return.
Glowing with pride, and dripping with prizes and happiness, he is feeling very pleased indeed with his world.
School prizes come in the form of book tokens. Oliver has got £26 to spend. I am impressed.
He had some tuck as well.
He is no longer a junior, but has graduated to the heady heights of becoming a senior boy. This is a height in more ways than one, as it means that his dormitory is now in the attic.
He is overwhelmed by how quickly it has passed, next term there will be a new intake of scared little boys, to whom he refers as ‘new bloods’, and he will be a lofty senior, knowing everything and bursting with self assurance.
He has grown up so much.
He is laughing and confident and thoughtful.
A teacher stands at the bottom of the school drive as you approach and tells the staff at the top whose parent you are. By the time you have carefully backed your car around dozens of milling small boys and into a parking space, your child has been forewarned of your approach, and is struggling towards you with several other small boys, all laden down with trunks and bags and quilts.
We turfed it all into the back of the car and chucked his bicycle on the top.
He tore off his tie and gave a vast sigh of relief.
He told me in great detail about cricket, and about the films they had seen, and about the idiot in the dorm, and what Chadders had said, and that somebody just wouldn’t keep their shirt tucked in.
I asked about Latin and French, and he nodded briefly and said that they were all right.
We went to the farm to collect Daddy.
Daddy was not doing things to the camper van but fixing my taxi, which had developed a troubling steering problem. This has meant that it has occasionally decided to think for itself about where it would like to go, not always in the direction I would have chosen.
Clearly this state of affairs could not be allowed to continue.
Mark took it to the farm last night and left it there, out of harm’s way, where it could not cause any problems, and ordered some heavy lumps of metal from Autoparts.
This morning we dragged ourselves blearily out of bed far too early, and I dropped him off at the farm on my way to get Oliver.
When we got back he hadn’t finished, but we were all so tired that he came home with us, and we had a contented half an hour sitting in the kitchen with a pot of tea, listening to school stories.
Then we sorted out the sacks of washing and went to sleep.
We didn’t set an alarm, and I woke up with a thud of horror at about five in the afternoon, having no idea what day or time it was, but overwhelmed with an awful conviction that I had forgotten to do something really important, and should be in York because I was letting the children down.
This turned out not to be true. I woke Mark up, and he said sleepily that I was thinking about Saturday. I can’t tell you the relief of discovering that I was not a failed human being, and that it was all right to be asleep instead of being halfway over the A66 yet again.
The end of term is always a bit stressful. We have all got to go to York again on Saturday, because it is Lucy’s speech day.
She will not be getting a prize. She explained that until they decide to issue awards for being the Most Average Student, she won’t be in the running for anything, and that she might even be struggling to get that one. She said I had better just live with it and try to enjoy the speeches.
We have got to work on Friday night, really until four if we are to make enough money for the week, and then turn up looking shiny and polished at school in York by ten. Then we have got to go home and go back to work.
I am not looking forward to this at all.
Oliver said that he will come with us on condition he can stay in the car with the dogs. I am relieved about this, because of not leaving him at home alone, with Twiglet up the road being asked to do an occasional check for shrieks of agony or billows of smoke from the windows. Fortunately we are meeting Nan and Grandad for lunch, and Oliver likes to do this.
Mark has gone back to the farm to fix my car, and I am in his car on the taxi rank.
I am longing to be at the farm painting an octopus, but nevertheless think I have probably got the best of the bargain.
