I absolutely love school things.
I have had a brilliant time.
It has been Aysgarth’s last hurrah of the term: the concert, followed by speeches, the prize giving, the sports day, and a picnic.
They have got another couple of weeks to do, but there is an exeat now, and it has got all of the fussing over and done with.
We were not in the best of form, having not arrived outside school until three in the morning. The concert started at ten, so we set the alarm for eight in order to fuel ourselves with some eye-wateringly strong coffee first.
Oliver was there, watching for us, tall and beaming and showing no signs whatsoever of being sore-ankle disabled. He couldn’t sit with us, because of being in the orchestra and the choir, so we sat where we could see him, and for the whole concert, he and Mark pulled rascally faces at one another when they thought that I wasn’t looking. I scowled at Oliver when I did notice, and nudged Mark in the ribs, but it only made them both worse really, so I gave up and listened to the music, which was ace.
They played the spine-tingling bit from Also Sprach Zarathustra, and as always, there were the glorious bagpipes. These are my absolute favourites, and I always cherish a secret wish that Oliver had wanted to learn to play, although of course really I know that it is just as well that he didn’t, because of the neighbours. You need to live at Balmoral to practise the bagpipes every day.
After the concert came the speeches, which were uneventful and short. We were not at all astonished to hear that we had got the most wonderful selection of brilliant boys in this corner of the planet, and glowed proudly at our achievement.
Actually they are not half bad. This year’s leavers have got twenty two scholarships between them, two to Eton, a couple to Harrow and Repton, and then the rest divided up between places like Oundle and Sedbergh and Uppingham. The Head was very chuffed indeed about this, as were the parents whose wallets are not going to be quite as seriously stripped for the next few years. Oliver has got his own scholarship exam in a few weeks now, I am probably more terrified than he is.
We were too far forward to be able to see very much of the rest of the audience, although I looked as much as I could, because that is also one of my favourite things to do. The ones I could see were interesting enough anyway.
The hall was full to bursting with tweed jackets and corduroy trousers, every set accompanied by an expensive haircut and jewellery. This is not a school for youthfully impoverished parents.
One couple near us were parents to a particularly hard-working boy, who won prize after prize, and a scholarship to Eton, and his father was so proud he was practically bouncing in his seat, grinning hard enough to make his face hurt. The mother of the Head Boy has to present the prizes, and every mother in the hall was appraising her, and her choice of dress, shoes and hairstyle with critical envy, what a scary thing to have to do.
In the end it was over, and we all trooped out for coffee before the sports. Oliver was not allowed to be in the sports, because of his sprained ankle, and so had been employed in holding an end of the finishing tape. Matron had the other end.
We stood by the finishing tape and chatted to him in between races. The races themselves were very exciting. Everybody knows that it is really important for your own House to win, and everybody is in a House, including the teachers. Oliver is in Thebans, and so obviously so are we.
Thebans did not win, but everyone was jolly sporting about it, The boys all shook hands in a nobly manly sort of way, and clapped one another on the shoulders and told the losers that they had done jolly well. There were more prizes, and words of sporting encouragement, and we all dispersed for the picnic.
Son of Oligarch and his mother joined us for the picnic, which was jolly good. The boys ate things, and then hurtled round the field, and somebody set up some cricket wickets, rather to the alarm of the chap beside us with an antique Rolls Royce. We ate until we were leaning back in our deckchairs for the sake of comfort, and everybody had just finished eyeing up the last bits of chicken when the heavens opened and we all scurried for shelter.
We set off back then. It was an absolutely brilliant day.
I can’t write any more. It has been an unexpectedly busy night at work, and now it is half past five in the morning.
I am going to bed.
The picture is Oliver with the finishing tape.
