I am on the taxi rank.
Unfortunately, I have been obliged to stop listening to the radio. This is because of being unable to bear the sound of the twerp who has somehow managed to be re-elected as our MP, warbling self-righteously on in the background to my life. Somebody with a sense of humour at the BBC has asked him to be a guest on Question Time, and to be frank, he is even worse than the country and western music that somebody else on the taxi rank seems to be playing on their radio.
He is worse than the irritating noise coming from the fan on the Chinese restaurant kitchen.
I would rather listen to a symphony played by car hooters.
Hence I have turned him off and am writing to you. I would probably have got round to this anyway quite soon, because it is rubbish to try and write in a hurry at two o’ clock in the morning. It is better to write a diary before I get grumpy and start yawning.
These things will be happening fairly soon anyway, because it has been rather a trying day.
Obviously it started early, because Mark had got to go to work: and so we leaped faithfully out of bed at daybreak, packed his lunch and his laptop in his bag, and off he went.
I took the children and the dogs up the fell side. It was not raining, which was a good start.
After that came the depressing awareness that tomorrow morning Oliver is going skiing in Italy, and had not got a single thing packed. In fact I had not organised anything except ten Euros that I extracted from somebody in the taxi who was otherwise penniless.
When I say I had not organised anything, that is of course not strictly true. Over the last few weeks I have been putting together a collection of thermal underwear and skiing gloves and goggles and other useful things, and although I had not strictly checked his passport and health insurance, I knew that he had them, and everything would be all right.
What I had not taken into account was that he would have worn everything that he owned whilst holidaying in Blackpool.
The few things that he had not worn were accumulated in crumpled heaps in secret corners of his school luggage.
Some frantic washing and ironing had got to take place.
I spent the day doing frantic washing and ironing.
This was not my favourite way to spend a day.
I packed up his picnic for the interminably long coach journey that school trips invariably select instead of an aeroplane. We went to the post office for the purchase of Euros. The man at the post office told me, with inappropriate cheerfulness, that the exchange rate for any that he didn’t spend would be shockingly extortionate, so he had better spend the lot, even if he has got to blow it on candy floss and juke box machines.
I pegged washing out and brought washing in and arranged it decoratively above the stove, and finally dragged it down and filled his bag with it.
He wanted to take all of his Waterstones purchases with him, but could not fit them in. We had to pare them down to his favourite five.
When I had finished it turned out that he did not have enough clean socks. In fact he did not have enough socks, of any description. He had four pairs, three odd ones, and one which had somebody else’s name on it. I told him, heartlessly, that he would have to wear some of them for two days. He bore this bravely. I hope Matron does not notice.
When everything was tidily smoothed and folded into his bag it was time to get ready for work.
I made picnics and emptied the dogs, and here I am.
It is going to be a long, long night.
We have got to be at school for eleven o’ clock in the morning.
I am not looking forward to it at all.
I have not taken a picture. Have a picture of the dancing fountains in Manchester.
