I have had a day fraught with difficulty.
I can hardly bear to relive it whilst telling you. I have seriously considered not thinking about it at all and making something up.
We didn’t finish work until almost four last night, and it was much, much later by the time we had cashed up and emptied the dogs and collapsed into bed.
This morning the alarm went off at nine.
This was because Lucy had a sequel to her driving theory test booked in Barrow.
I hate rushing for these things, so we allowed plenty of time. The test was booked for twelve, so we got ourselves properly organised and set off at half past ten. This was jolly good time and would give me lots of opportunity to get stuck in traffic and find a parking space and not need to feel murderous towards other motorists.
Things started to go wrong when, about twenty minutes into the journey, it occurred to me to check that Lucy had remembered to bring her driving licence, which she hadn’t.
I felt very smug and pleased with myself for allowing plenty of time, and assured her that it would be quite all right. She must call Daddy and ask him to set off with it. We would turn round and head back, we would meet him on the way, then turn back round and carry on. Not to worry. There would be time.
Windermere in August is very busy indeed. There are people everywhere, wandering in and out of the roads, spilling off the pavements, and of course, chugging around hunting for somewhere handy to park. Traffic was already queueing for miles, exhausts purring out diesel fumes, with buses, delivery wagons and coaches creeping anxiously along the narrow roads.
We were on one such narrow road.
Mark instantly agreed, and we thought we would meet up at a handy passing point along the side of the lake.
It took him ages to get there.
When he arrived he screeched into the passing place, because a coach was thundering along behind him, and we both knew that getting stuck behind it would add another twenty minutes to my journey. He threw Lucy’s purse through my window and I accelerated out and away with a plume of black smoke.
We had only been travelling for a moment or two when Lucy said anxiously:
“Umm, this isn’t my purse, Mum.”
In his rush to help me get away Mark had thrown not Lucy’s purse, but his own phone through my window.
We stared at it in horror.
I stamped on the brakes and did a taxi-driver U-turn. This involves ignoring all the rest of the traffic and assuming, usually correctly, that people will be intimidated enough to get out of the way, which they did. I set off back up the road as fast as I possibly could.
Of course we couldn’t ring Mark to tell him, because his phone was there on Lucy’s lap, although I had to keep reminding myself of this, because my conscious mind couldn’t quite take it in. This is what happens when something too dreadful for words happens, it is called Denial.
Lucy rang Number Two Daughter.
Number Two Daughter belted out of the house in her pyjamas and went rushing off to try and meet Mark as far away from home as she possibly could.
I ploughed back through the grumbling traffic.
We were almost home before Number Two Daughter and Mark came hurtling down the road towards us. We exchanged phone and purse through the windows, and I accelerated away.
I am a competent high-speed driver, due to a mis-spent youth.
I even fastened my seatbelt. Taxi drivers are exempt from this requirement, and so on the whole I don’t bother, but today was different.
I cut along the back roads and overtook everybody, sometimes safely, more often not. I accelerated and slammed down the gears and spun around corners with the handbrake on. People swerved out of the way, and made rude gestures, and one woman, in an Audi, who had tried very hard to stop me going past her, seemed very keen to express her opinions.
It takes an hour to get to Barrow.
We made it in forty minutes.
I had forgotten that the test centre was on a one way street, and skidded in to it anyway. Lucy leaped out and rushed in. As the door closed behind her, and I took a deep breath, the town hall clock struck twelve.
Apparently the woman behind the desk had thought we were going to come through the window.
I chugged exhaustedly up to the car park and sat numbly for a few minutes. Then I wandered slowly across Barrow to meet Lucy, making myself temporarily discontented by exploring a furniture shop and trying out beautiful, comfortable chairs. One day, perhaps when the children have left home, we will have some comfortable chairs.
Lucy burst out of the test centre just as I arrived.
She had passed.
I did not want to do anything else in Barrow. We went home, slowly and peacefully.
Nobody was at home except Oliver. Number Two Daughter was working, and Mark has gone away to Scotland.
I felt a bit forlorn at being by myself, but I was very glad that Mark had gone all the same.
He has gone to Bute to see Bluebird and Ted, and is very excited about it.
Ted has managed to get it to two hundred miles an hour already, and is very pleased indeed.
Two hundred miles an hour.
I thought I was going quickly down the Newby Bridge road.
I am so proud to think that somebody we know has been so brave, and is doing something so very clever. Bluebird is a little bit of history, it is older than I am and has been at the bottom of Coniston almost all of my life.
If you are interested you can find out all about it at www.bluebirdproject.com . They accept donations rather willingly, because of it being an expensive project.
