When I was a child I recall my grandmother talking, regretfully, after exciting occasions, about indigestion.
All sorts of things could trigger this, especially cucumber, and she would make a special effort to be careful about what she ate.
I remember wondering what indigestion was.
I know now.
I am sitting on the taxi rank and I can promise you that I have now got all the practical experience of indigestion that anybody could ever need.
I have not been eating cucumber. The problem is simply that I have eaten so much that I can barely bend in the middle.
We have had our family lunch out. It has been the whole family, except for poor Number One Son-In-Law, who is on an oil rig. We have not all been together for seven years.
Oliver had gone back to school, but we were so determined to have a complete family gathering for once, that we begged and pleaded with school to release him. They did not want to do this at all, because it is something called an All In Weekend, which is full of cricket practice and choir practice and chapel and other important things, and also the headmaster had already said no to some other boys wishing to slope off.
I do not know what made him relent in Oliver’s case, perhaps some kindly god whispered in his ear, but he did, generously. We were given strict instructions not to tell anybody in case they felt jealous, so just so you know, it is a secret.
This was a wonderful thing. We could not have done it without Oliver being there. It would have felt terribly sad, to have a whole-family event without him. It was bad enough not to have Number One Son-In-Law, who is on an oil rig, and I very much wanted to have all my little chicks together, if not in the nest, then at least in the pub.
Mark drove over to Yorkshire to collect him this morning whilst I got everything ready for our night at work, so that we would not have to worry about making tea and sandwiches and cleaning last night’s customers out of taxis when we got home.
They made it back just in time, and we rushed off. We were not meeting up in the village, but at a rather splendid hotel called The Swan, which is at Newby Bridge at the southern end of the lake. It is halfway between our house and Ritalin Boy’s Other Grandma, which is handy, although you do have to drive. We had to take both taxis, because there were so many of us, and I collected Number Three Daughter, the lodger, on my way.
We were a very large family. Number One Daughter had brought her friend, and of course there was Ritalin Boy with his Identical Twin Cousin, and his Other Grandma. Number Two Daughter had Number Two Daughter-In-Law (Common Law), and also her best friend from the council office, who is easily as rascally as Number Two Daughter, and quite possibly worse.
It was a splendid, celebratory occasion, if you can have a celebration without anything to celebrate. I laughed a very great deal.
The thing was that I ate a very great deal as well. We were divided about whether it was better to have a starter, or a pudding, and so in the end of course we had both. Some people shared their puddings with their neighbour. I did not do that, although Oliver, who was talkative and funny and a good choice to sit next to, shared his with me.
It was a riot, especially at Ritalin Boy’s end of the table. Somebody had given the two boys rubber octopuses. Halfway through dinner they vanished to the loo and filled these with water. This increased their tiresomeness considerably.
The other end of the table was not greatly better, and shrieks and giggles issued from it frequently. It is splendid to be in the company of so many young women, all so much bolder and braver than I ever was at their age, it must be very hard work to be a young man these days. They lift weights and play contact sports. They are beautifully groomed and elegant and made up, and they run and sail and fight and ski and know what to do with guns. Between them they have a range of tattoos that would do credit to the Navy, and a salty turn of phrase likewise. I was jolly proud of all of them.
We had to go when we had eaten, because of work. We assembled outside the hotel for a photograph, and whilst we were milling about, Ritalin Boy took all his clothes off and jumped in the lake. This was thoroughly brave, because it was freezing, being the bottom end of Windermere and not a secluded little tarn. The picture is above, it is why he did not make it to the picture that is below.
When we got back I was suddenly utterly exhausted, as though I had been in the middle of an enormous explosion, and had somehow become very still and quiet inside myself.
I put on a very soft jumper to go to work.
It has been wonderful.
