I am in the camper van with Mark and Oliver.
We finished work at around half past twelve, and set off for Yorkshire, where we arrived at half past three this morning.
It is pleasant to drive at this time of night, when nobody else is bothering. We have got a music playing machine in the cab now, and this was lovely. We put a CD on and spent the journey lost in reveries of our long-gone youth.
Actually I would not like my youth back for a single minute, it is much nicer to be old and contented with a large family of rascals about me. I spent much of the journey last night staring up into the unimaginable night sky and remembering the bleak moments in my teenage years when I knew for certain that the universe was a vast cruel place where my life meant nothing, and eventually would be indifferently snuffed out in the blink of an eye.
Now I am grown up I feel that I am on far more equal terms with the universe. If it decides to snuff me out I will consider that I have extracted more than enough good times from it in return, most certainly I have not been short changed by the arrangement. I can now look the universe in the eye and give a metaphorical shrug.
We were woken up by voices outside the camper van speculating about the translation of the Ibbetson Family Motto on the back, which made the dogs bark. This turned out to be just as well. because by the time we had made the bed and stuffed ourselves full of muesli with cream and yoghurt it was time to collect Oliver.
He was the first boy out of school.
He explained that this was because he had been in the class that was waving to us out of the windows. Apparently he had heard us chugging up the drive, and when he said something to the effect of ‘goodness me, that must be my parents, look at all that blue smoke’ the teacher let him out, probably in the hope that we would buzz off before all the aristocratic parents turned up for their titled offspring.
Actually that is not at all true, because we could not hope for a warmer welcome anywhere than we get at Oliver’s School For Youthful Oiks With Blue Blood. Without exception every teacher and parent has been entirely lovely, not only about the camper van even before it was painted, but they even managed to be civilised the time when I turned up in somebody else’s taxi with a huge second hand fridge sticking perilously out of the back.
It turned out that Oliver had known perfectly well that we were there, because several teachers had already told him over breakfast that they had seen us camping at the bottom of the school drive.
It was brilliant to see him, and we chugged off excitedly, listening to stories of dorms and rugger and adventures with all the joy of being together again.
We went to Knaresborough, where there is a gorgeous river gorge with the extra attraction of free parking. The intention was to spend the afternoon walking, because you can mill about there for hours listening to the birds and watching the squirrels, but actually it was raining so hard that Oliver declined our invitation to come for a walk at all, and Mark and I had a very happy but brief wander along the quiet riverside which resulted in us being soaked and the carpet being covered in muddy paw prints.
Mark and Oliver spent the rest of the afternoon alternately competing with one another over multiplication and competing with one another’s over a computer game called something like ‘smash all other cars on the pretend road to bits’. This made them laugh a lot.
I already know most of my multiplication tables and am not interested in virtual car accidents, so I read my book and tried not to go to sleep.
In the end we drove to Lucy’s school, which is where we are now, in a lay by at the side of the road.
Tomorrow we will all be together again.
PS I have been drinking, can you tell?
