We were late this morning.
Mark reset the alarm for two hours later than usual. This was very reckless behaviour, but he said that he didn’t care in the least. He said that everybody needed at least four hours’ sleep in order to function like civilised human beings, and so we did not wake up until half past eight.
When we did wake up he went off to work, and I took the dogs up the fell.
Oliver did not come with me. He is not very well.
He has succumbed to some vile stomach upset which is necessitating a great deal of time spent in his bathroom.
I explained to him that under the circumstances he needed to keep himself very clean and wash his hands at appropriate moments. I reinforced this instruction by showing him a photograph of a bacterium taken with an electron microscope. I have attached it at the top of this for your benefit as well. This horrified not just Oliver but all of us so much that we resolved to wash our hands with absolute diligence for all the rest of our lives.
I do not think that it was the bacterium who was personally responsible for his poo problems, but it was horrible enough to drive the message home, and indeed this morning to my absolute astonishment he had his first ever voluntary shower. I did not suggest it, encourage it or even know about it. He came downstairs wrapped in a towel and looking pale but not grubby.
I am a bit concerned about it because he is supposed to be going back to school tomorrow, and if he is still incapacitated then he will have to stay here. He is not exactly ill. He seems to be consuming his usual diet of beef burgers and Haribos and barbecue flavoured Doritos, but he is a funny colour and mostly in his bathroom.
I have had to make extra hygienic efforts as a consequence of this, and have been taking extreme care with anything that has emerged from his bedroom, in case it is crawling with tiny invisible monsters. I have washed and wiped and disinfected. This is mostly because I do not wish to catch it. My life is quite occupied enough without needing to spend any more of it in the bathroom.
I am on the taxi rank at the moment. Mark has gone home to bed. He appeared briefly here a little while ago to let me know that he had lost his patience with the traffic lights in the middle of the village.
They are stuck on red both ways and have been causing some irritating nuisance. I have just been pulling out of the lines of traffic and driving through, but Mark stopped and dragged both sets of lights out of the way so that they were pointing at the shops instead of the road. This has resolved the congestion problem, and tranquility has been restored to the village.
I have not gone home to bed because I had a sleep this afternoon.
I unpacked all of Oliver’s rather repellent ski holiday things and stuffed them into the washing machine. I rather think the hotel must have been as rubbish as he said it was, because everything was grimy and had a sort of sticky feel to it. He does not seem to have minded this, and said that the teachers did not mind either, because there was a bar into which they all went as soon as the boys had gone to bed. I liked this idea very much, although found it impossible to imagine Matron under the intoxicating influence of alcohol. I hope they had as good a time as Oliver did.
Mark rang when he got home to say that Oliver had put himself to bed early, and that he was going to do the same, so I am by myself. Numbers One and Two Daughters have both called, but other than that the evening has been undisturbed. I have got the whole flask of tea to myself, and am quietly sitting here trying to encourage our finances to improve.
I hope he is better by morning.
