It is almost midnight, and I am just starting to write this. It is Bank Holiday weekend, and we are very, very busy.
This is the first time I have stopped for long enough to open my computer, and I am not expecting to be able to write very much at all. There are a lot of people visiting the Lake District. They have all been drinking, they are hot and tired, and they all want to be taken back to their guest houses in a taxi.
We have not stopped dashing about for ages.
This is a jolly good job, because we need the cash. Today we have done something completely unheard-of.
We went out to lunch for the third day on the run.
That is three times, three days, one after the other, that we have blithely strolled into a catering establishment, flopped on to their marvellously comfortable furniture, and demanded to be fed.
It was wonderful.
Today, as you know, Number One Daughter was coming to visit.
In fact, when she turned up, she had brought her complete entourage of Ritalin Boy, Ritalin Boy’s Identical Twin Cousin, and Ritalin Boy’s Other Grandma, who had a hangover.
This prompted some virtuous eye-rolling from Number One Daughter, who thinks that old people are all badly behaved drunkards and need supervision.
I have a great deal of sympathy for hangovers, being an old person.
The children bounced enthusiastically all over our bed in the living room, whilst we had coffee, and after a foray upstairs, Ritalin Boy announced that he had put my hairbrush in the loo and then, he said, cheerfully, done a wee on it.
I compelled him to get it out. I did not let him see me spraying it with disinfectant before I brushed his hair with it, and he shrieked in horror, somewhat to my satisfaction.
Once we were suitably stimulated with caffeine, Lucy and Oliver took the children to the park whilst Number One Daughter came for my run with me.
This was every bit as humiliating as you might think.
Number One Daughter was very patient with my excruciatingly slow running, and encouraging about the bits where I had to stop and walk, and it was absolutely ace to have a small window of her time. We do not see one another very often, and it was brilliant to have some time together. She chatted away, cheerfully, all the way up.
This was splendid, except for one thing. The problem was that I could not utter a single word for most of the journey, due to lack of oxygen. It is difficult to talk when your chest is heaving and you are frantically gulping for air. I thought of lots of things that I would like to say, but when it actually came to trying to shape the words, mostly the only thing I could recognisably manage to say was: “Gosh.”
Try it. It is one of the few words that can be reliably produced even whilst suffocating in your own inadequacy.
Number One Daughter kindly pretended not to notice the bellows puffing along next to her, and said that it was all right to walk for most of your run if you were fifty three and had never done any exercise. Also, every now and again she checked behind her to make sure I was not dead.
I checked behind me to make sure that the dog was not dead. He is about a hundred years old with a dodgy hip, but even he manages to keep up with me.
Number One Daughter jogged patiently next to me all the way down. We both knew that what was spirit-shattering exercise for me did not even qualify as a gentle warm up for her, but she managed to avoid pointing this out, for which I was cravenly grateful.
I will have to try harder. The day will come, one day, when I can run all the way up. That day is not today.
When we got home we had ice lollies and somebody had the brilliant idea that we could go out for lunch.
The lodger had finished work, so she came to join us, and we piled in to the bistro on the corner. After some faffing about they managed to find a table big enough, and we ordered an enormous lunch of pizzas and nachos and olives and milkshakes.
Ritalin Boy had apple juice, which he managed to drink via a straw which he jammed firmly up his nose. I was hugely impressed by this ability, and would have had a go myself if they had served my wine with a straw, but they didn’t. I was busily trying to work out how he did it when his mother obliged him to desist. I would like to see if it really can be done, it is rather a splendid party trick.
We ate lots, again. I am beginning to look rather like I am wearing a pillow underneath my T-shirt, but it was so absolutely ace to be with them all that I didn’t care. The picture is all of us at the table, the waiter took it for us. I rather like the shot of Ritalin Boy, which I think is something of a character study.
We had to have another little sleep before we went to work.
It turned out that I was right about it being a busy night. I am just now finishing this, it is five in the morning, and the sun has risen.
I have had a truly happy day.
It is lovely to have such a very large and satisfactory family.
